Thomas A Kempis - His Age and Book 1906

lit:'-:
THOMAS A KEMPIS
HIS
AGE AND BOOK
BY THE SAME AUTHOR

State Intervention Education
Life
in
English
National Education and National
The Progress
England
of
Education
in
RT T
THOMAS
HIS
\ KEMPIS
AGE AND BOOK
BY
J. E.
G.
DE MONTMORENCY,
B.A., LI,.B.
OF ST Peter's college, Cambridge, and of the middle temple BARRISTER-AT-LAW
WITH TWENTY-TWO ILLUSTRATIONS
NEW YORK:
LONDON
:
G. P.
PUTNAM'S SONS METHUEN & CO.

1906
First Published in igob
TO
THE MEMORY OF
MY FATHER
JAMES LODGE DE MONTMORENCY
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
List
.....
of
"
PAGE
ix
of
Manuscripts
Imitatione Christi
in
De the Treatise English Libraries

. .
"
xix
xxi
List of other Manuscripts cited

"
List of Printed Editions of the Treatise
"
De
.
Imitatione Christi
I.
cited
xxii
i
The Age
Some
of Thomas a Kempis
II.
Fifteenth
Century
Manuscripts
.
and
Editions of the Imitation
.106
III. Master Walter Hilton and the Authorship OF the Imitation .139 IV. The Structure of the Imitation .170 V. The Content of the Imitation 223
. . .
.
APPENDIX
"
De Meditatione
Cordis," by Jean le Charlier de Gerson, Chancellor of Paris

. .
297
Extract from the a Kempis
Index
...... .....
"
APPENDIX
II
Garden of Roses,"
by
Thomas
305
309
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
(These illustrations are
reproductions from fifteenth century manuscripts or printed books.)
all
The Four
Page Latin Fathers producing the Music of the Church of Christ Fronfis.
Description
Facing
British
Source
Museum.
7
Royal
{circa
....
.
MSS.
1460).
B.
viii.
Lib.
i. Cap. i. of the treatise de Imitaiione Christi

. .
22
Lambeth Palace Library. Codex 536 {circa 1440).

British
(See
(See
p.
162 within.)
The same
p.
48
114 within.)
.
Museum. Harleian MSS. 3216. (21 De1454).
cember
Richard Rolle of Hampole
(See
p.
.
70
British
Museum.
Faustina,
68
et seq. within.)
MS.
Part
B.
Cotton IL
b.
IL
fol.
114
{circa 1400).
Lib.
IL part of Cap. xi. and Lib. IIL part of Cap. xxi. of the treatise de Imitatione Christi
. .
Royal
96
Library,
Brussels.
(144 1.
Autograph
k Kempis.)
of
Thomas
British
(See
Lib.
p.
94 et
i.
seq. within.)
of the treatise de Imitatione Christi

.
L Cap.
p.
Museum.
8
C.
vii.
Royal
{circa
.107
.111
117
MSS.
1420).
(See
(See
106 et seq. within.)

.
The same
p.
1
10 et seq. within.)
The same
(See (See
p.
116 within.)
.
Museum. Burney MSS. 314 {circa 1419). British Museum. Harleian MSS. 3223(1478).
British
First
The same
p.
1
19
page of Editio Prin-
18 et seq. within.)
ceps printed at
Augsburg
about
47 1.
Vlll
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Description
Facing
Source
Page
The Device
(See
Lib.
I.
of Les Fr^res
Marnef
130
Paris edition of 149 1.
p.
130 within.) Cap. i. of the treatise de

.
hnitatione Christi
141
161
Lambeth Palace Library. Codex 475 {circa 1450.)
(See
p.
160 e^
The same
.....
seq. within.)
Emmanuel
Library,
College
Cambridge.
{circa
(See pp. 162-3 within.)
The same
(See
p.
(in
English)
163
Codex 83 Cambridge
Library.
1450).
University
G.g.
i,
163 within.)
16
{circa 1450).
From
The same
(See
p.
a photograph by Messrs
166
within.)
Mason
<Sr
Basevi
164
if/.y^^.
Magdalen College Library, Codex xciii. Oxford.
From a photoâph
Woodcut
(See
p.
by
Mr Horace
195
a Pi^ta with Jerusalem

137 within.) of the Adoration of the
(November 29th, Hart London edition of
1438).
503.
in the distance
Woodcut Magi
Woodcut
Paris edition of 1496.

201
(See pp. 132-3 within.)

of the Crucifixion
.
217

British
tional
(See pp. 132-3 within.) Lib. I. Cap. i. and ii.

.
and part
225
Museum.
Addi-
of Cap. iii. of the treatise de Iniitatione Christi
MSS.
1437 {circa
1465).
(See
p.
14 within.)
Woodcut
(See
p.
of the Descent from the
Venice edition of 1488 of

230
the treatise de Imitatione
Christi.
Cross (a Pi^ta)
Woodcut
pliant
127 within.) of Christ and the Sup-
Argentine edition of 1489.
240
Trinity
(See pp. 129-130 within.) Lib. III. Cap. i. of the treatise de Imitatione Christi (in English)
(See
p.
College
Library
247
288
Dublin
{circa 1450).
Woodcut
(See
p.
163 within.) of the Crucifixion
133 within.)
INTRODUCTION
^-^^
TÊSPITE
the vast literature that has gathered round the treatise de Imitatione Christi, no
apology should be needed for the appearance at the present time of a volume dealing with that work, and
with the age in which it was written. The perpetual fascination of the former theme is undeniable, while
the
wave
of mysticism that
is
now moving
across
Europe, England, and America, makes the study of

the not
dissimilar
phenomenon
that troubled
the
minds and consciences of men

fifteenth centuries
in the fourteenth
and
both monitory and profitable.
We
hear much to-day concerning the weakening of faith in God, Freedom, and Immortality, and there can be
no doubt that the outlook of the western world upon the fundamental dogmas of religion has greatly
changed
in
the
last
thirty
years.
tends to become an inlook, and the
The outlook movement from

to
one position of
spiritual
equilibrium
another
necessarily involves the dislocation that accompanies
any radical change. It is with a sense of despair and a certainty of loss, that many who have grown
up
in the older school see this
thought.
To some
it
tendency in religious seems almost irreligious to
INTRODUCTION
Kingdom
of
seek, with the mystic, the
Heaven
in
the soul rather than
in
the firmament and to find
the voice of
God
universe, but in
not in the earthquake or the fiery Yet the whispers of conscience.
there
The
nothing surprising in such a tendency. mediaeval mystics deliberately adopted it in

is
answer
miseries,
to
the
spiritual
discontents
and
social
to
their day.
the faithlessness and unhappiness, of The Imitation of Christ was, and is,
an the apology for this position of introspection apology that has appealed to men with a force
otherwise
An
first
profane literature. been made in the following pages has attempt of all to place before the reader the group of
unknown
in
European movements and events that was responsible for the school of spiritual thought of which
Thomas
tative
;
Kempis
to
is
secondly,
religious,
trace
the most notable represenin outline the various
forces
philosophical,
and
literary
that
to to
came
life
to a focus in a
Kempis, and so brought

lastly,
the
treatise
de Imitatione Christi\
exhibit the
analyse that treatise in considerable detail so as to body of doctrine that its author drew
from the material that he had gathered together

a body of doctrine that repels completely the charges brought against the mysticism of Haemmerlein by
Dean Milman and Thackeray.

pear
entirely
to
These
have missed the
writers apauthor's point
INTRODUCTION
xi
of view, and to have confounded the Outer with
the Inner Hfe, despite the very clear and sensible distinction that a Kempis makes between these two
broad aspects of man's complex personality. It has been a laborious task to describe even
briefly the historical
environment, the structure and
the content of the Imitation.
Many volumes would

an exhaustive
dis-
be required
for
anything
like
a Kempis. It seems, however, not possible to explain the extraordinary literary history of the Imitation, or to estimate its influence in the future, without some
cussion of the
of
Age and Book
Thomas
such discussion, though
it is impracticable in any limited space to clear up the innumerable questions that arise as soon as a student attempts to deal with
the complex age in which a Kempis lived, with the literary texture of his deathless work, and the
mystical doctrines with which that work abounds. It has been assumed, in writing these words, that Thomas Haemmerlein of Kempen is the author of
the
treatise
de Imitatione
Christi.
That
is
my
definite opinion after

this
a very careful consideration of
problem, and in the following pages there are set out some of the reasons that have
literary
enabled
me to make up my mind on that ancient The doubt as to the authorship of the question.
Imitation has probably aroused more acute controversy than any other problem in pure literature.
xii
INTRODUCTION
bitterness of the controversiaHsts has been in
The
inverse proportion to the sweetness of the book. Nor has this intensity of feeHng ahogether passed
away.
This
is
more
is
particularly
as the
the
case
with
I
respect to
what
known
Gersen
claim.
have never seen any evidence that, on examination, presented even 2i prima facie case for the authorship
of a person
named John Gersen, Abbot

to
of Vercelli,
first
who
is
supposed
have flourished
in
the
half
If a thirteenth century of the thirteenth century. manuscript of the Imitation can be produced, the
cases for John le Charlier de Gerson and
Thomas
Kempis would
the
disappear.
But
this fact
would not
The quotation enthrone mysterious Abbot. from St Bonaventura in the fiftieth chapter of the
third
book would
tell
as heavily against Gersen as
against St Bernard.
This
fact
has to be met, and
never has been met, by the Benedictine Order in their curious support of the Abbot discovered for
them by Constantine Cajetan in the seventeenth But there is no thirteenth century manucentury.
Manuscripts of this treatise abound throughout Europe, but not a single one that has been examined by competent authorities
has been
placed
it
script of the Imitation.
earlier
than
the
early
fifteenth
century, and
must be remembered that the margin

years.
of error in dating a mediaeval manuscript does not
exceed forty
The
"Codex
Aronensis
"
INTRODUCTION
printed
at
xiii
by the Benedictine Constantine Cajetan Rome, in the year 1616, attributes the work to
the
Abbot John Gersen.

to identify
this
deavoured
Vercelli.
name
Cajetan fruitlessly enas an Abbot of
There is no evidence that there was The ever an Abbot of Vercelli bearing that name.
Aronensis manuscript is undoubtedly a fifteenth The difficulties of establishing century document.
the Gersen
authorship are
indeed overwhelming.
that there
;
We
have
first
to establish the fact
was
an Abbot of Vercelli bearing that name then we have to show that the existing fifteenth century
manuscripts are transcripts from a lost thirteenth century original then we have to expunge from the
;
tion
manuscripts all later references, such as the quotafrom Bonaventura finally, having proved the
;
existence of the
Abbot of
Vercelli
and the thirteenth
century origin of the work, we have the hopeless task of connecting the abbot and the work. This series of improbabilities destroys the Gersen theory.
Gersen, or Gersem, or Gerseem can be nothing but variants of Gerson. The British Museum manuscripts are
very strong evidence of
this.
The
claims of Gerson and Walter Hilton to the

in
authorship are discussed at length

ing pages.
the follow-
The work was

in
each of them
tury,
the
first
certainly attributed to half of the fifteenth cen-
and
in
the absence of
Thomas
a Kempis, the
xiv
INTRODUCTION
them would be strong enough
Certainly the claim in Hilton's
claims of either of
to secure the prize.
remarkable enough, for there is nothing in his prose style to exclude him from consideration.
case
is
This cannot be said with respect to Gerson.

certainly not cleared
set out to solve
treatise,
have
the problem that I the explanation of the fact that the
up
finally
Musica
Ecclesiastica (consisting of the
first
books of the Imitation) was for centuries attributed to Walter Hilton, a canon of the same
three
Order as that
to
which a Kempis belonged.

is
The
flaw in Hilton's case and, for the matter of that, in
Gerson's case also,

to lay
that the student
is
compelled
fact
undue
stress
on the value of the
that
Gerson's or Hilton's
name
in
is
in
quite early times
attached to the work.

right nor conscience
There was neither copythese matters during the
Middle Ages, and the giving of an author's name is no The exact guarantee at all of authorship.
problem that troubles us in the case of the Imitation occurs in the case of innumerable treatises of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
it
These are dead, and

the authorship of
does not
much matter who wrote them, but we
are necessarily concerned with the one work that has survived.
Mr Samuel
Kettlewell's writings on the Author-
ship of the Imitation and the Brothers of Common Life have, of course, been of great assistance to me.
INTRODUCTION
and
it
xv
I
has been with
much
diffidence that
have
ventured here and there to question his statements His confiding style, real or extend his material.
learning,
criticism,
and
and
I
admirable
shall
earnestness
if
disarm
this
all
be gratified
in
volume
to
may be
considered
some
small
measure
supplement
his patient labours.
Especial attention may be drawn to one feature of this book. I have reprinted in the first appendix Gerson's little treatise de Meditatione Cordis. This
work was
Imitation
as popular in the
itself.
It
Middle Ages as the has never been printed as a
single work, but probably appeared in print before the Imitation, as it was issued under Gerson's name
with other tracts of his from Cologne by Ulrich Zel between 1467 and 1472. Manuscripts of the treatise
are very rare.
It
I
doubt
if
there
is
one
in
England.
was apparently one of a series of tracts of the same type, such as Gerson's de Simplificatione
Cordis, de Perfectione Cordis,
evidence indicates that
it
and others. Internal was a late work, written

of
probably
after
the
Council
it
Constance,
and
proves beyond doubt that

pen.
was from Gerson's
very considerably from the series of editions between 1485 and 1526, and the series between 1570 and 1575, when it
The
editio princeps differs
appeared as a supplement to successive editions of

the Imitation.
text here presented is to some extent composite, the intention being to secure a
The
xvi
INTRODUCTION
and obscuri-
text as free as possible from the errors

ties
of early copyists and printers. The Cologne edition of 1467-72 has been in one or two places
used to clear up difficulties, but the text is chiefly founded upon that of Milan (1488); another of
1492
without
;
printed
place
of
origin
(possibly
Nuremberg (1494); and another of about 1496, issued either at Leipsic or Magdeburg (British Museum, I. A. 10,955). The work
Ulm)
that
of
of course, of real interest as showing the fundamental difference between the style of Gerson and
is,
that of the
author of the
intrinsic
Imitation,
It
but
is
it
also
and certainly not the least of the it was written when the classical great Schoolmen Renaissance was actually in sight it may be called
last,
;
possesses pen of the
much
value.
from the
all
the last literary work of the Old Age, and it has the learning and all the humour that distinguished
work of Walter Map two centuries before. The work proves conclusively that Gerson was not, as some critics have thought, the dry remainder biscuit
the
of a
dead age, but was
in
fact
the
living link
between the learning of the Middle Ages and the
The greatest figure learning of the Renaissance. of his age, he was, of necessity, associated with
greatest book, and perhaps no finer tribute has been offered to the genius of the humble monk who
its
penned the work than

It
this inevitable association.
has been a matter of anxious care to secure
INTRODUCTION
contemporary
illustrations for the book.
xvii
The
early
printed editions
have supplied the curious woodcuts
here reproduced.
interesting-
The
frontispiece
for
it
is
illumination,
is
a peculiarly not only an
admirable example of a lost art, but it shows the meaning that the term Musica Ecclesiastica con-
veyed to the mediaeval mind. The pages reproduced from manuscripts in London, Oxford, Cambridge, Dublin, and Brussels will, I think, be of particular
interest
to
Colonial,
American,
students
who
are unable to visit
and Continental the libraries from

definite
purpose If we had but served by these reproductions. an exact reproduction of one page of the unique
is
which these pages are drawn.
manuscript of Asser's Life of Kifig Alfred, burnt in the great Cottonian fire of October 23rd, 1731,
a literary problem of the
first
magnitude would not
have
have reproduced here eleven pages from various English and Irish manuscripts of the
arisen.
I
Imitation,
tog-ether
and
the
fact
that
these
will
from scattered sources
brought enable scholars
are
to test for themselves with
some degree of accuracy
the views that
have ventured to express on the
authorship question, book of this type necessarily owes a great I have to thank deal to others beside the author.
various
members
of the ever-courteous and learned
staff at the British
Museum
Library,
and
especially
of
Mr
J.
A. Herbert of the Department of Manu-
xviii
INTRODUCTION
for assistance
scripts,
and advice
in
the ceaseless
any discussion of problems dealing with manuscripts and early printed books. My acknowledgments are due to His Grace the
difficulties that arise in
Archbishop of Canterbury for kindly allowing the reproduction of pages from the Lambeth manuscripts,
and
have especially
for
to
thank
Mr
Kershaw,
the librarian,
enabling
me
to identify
beyond
much doubt
in
the
the handwriting of Archbishop Bancroft attribution, written on MS. 475, of the

to
Imitation
Walter
Hilton.
have
to
thank
Mr
Falconer
Madan
for valuable information as to
the Bodleian
drawing
my
manuscripts, and, in particular, for attention to the interesting Dutch MS.
(Marshall, 124). acknowledgments are also due to the authorities of the various libraries men-
My
tioned in the text for their readiness in permitting the reproduction of pages of manuscripts in their
possession.
Head, of de Burgh, of Trinity College, Dublin, were good enough to give me the most useful information as
;
The late Dr Shuckburgh and Mr F. W. Emmanuel College, Cambridge and Mr
to
the manuscripts in their charge.
have also
particularly to thank
publishers for their ready help in the difficult task of securing contemporary
illustrations.
J.
my
E. G.
DE
M.
II
New
Square, Lincoln's Inn

August 2gth, Igod.
LIST OF MANUSCRIPTS OF
THE
IMITATION IN ENGLISH LIBRARIES

(The MSS. marked with an asterisk are entitled Musica Ecclesiastica and have only the first three books.)
Place
I.
Reference and reputed
Date
Author
British
Museum.
Royal
M.SS.
C.
vii.
Circa
1420
{none; part of First
(or earlier).
Book
2.
only).
British
Museum.
Burney
MSS.
314
Circa
14 19
{Gerson).
3.
(or earlier).
British
Museum.
Museum.
Harley MSS. 3216.

Additional
21st
1454.
Dec.
4.
British
MSS.
11,437
Circa 1465.
{Gerson;
British
first
two
Circa 1470.
books only).
*5.
Museum.
Royal MSS.
{none).
7,
B.
viii.
6.
British
Museum.
Harley
MSS.
3223
1478.
{Gerson).
*7.
Lambeth
Library.
Palace
Codex 475
(//z7/i?7/).
Circa
1450
(or later).
*8.
Lambeth
Library.
Palace Codex
S3^ {none).
Circa
1440
(or earlier).
9.
Bodleian Library.
K. D. 37(5) {none; First
Circa 1450.
Sixteenth
ID.
Bodleian Library.
Book only). Misc. Laud

{Gerson
Kempis).
167(1)
or John
Century.
XX
LIST OF ENGLISH MANUSCRIPTS
LIST OF
SOME OF THE OTHER MANUSCRIPTS CITED

Place
Title
1.
and Page where Cited

Paris.
Date
1406.
Gerson's Sermon, Vivat

/?^jr(pp. 24-6).
2.
Gerson's
De
(p.
Laude
49).
New
College, Oxford.
Fifteenth
Scriptoruin
3.
Century.
De
(P-
Imitationc
93)-
Christi
Royal Library, Brussels. Royal Library, Brussels.
1425.
4.
De
Imitatione
Christi
I44i-
(pp. 94-5).
5.
Treatises of
Thomas k
Novitios
Royal Library, Brussels.

University Library, Louvain.
1456-
Kempis
6.
(p. 95).
Sermones ad
(p.
Circa
1450-
95)(p.
7.
Musica Ecclesiastica
97).
Royal Library, Brussels.

British
Circa
1450-
8.
De
Contemplacione
(p.
Museum,
C.
vii.
Royal
Circa
1420.
107).
9.
MSS.
75iii).
The Passion of our Lord

(p. 108).
Bodleian
Library,
Bodley,
1405-
10. 11.
12.
Terence
i;^.
I4I9-
De
Conjugio (p. 151). Stimulus Amoris (p.

151).
Bernard's List, 9259, 73, 2. Cambridge University Library,
Fifteenth
H.
h. 1-12.
Century.
Fifteenth
13.
Scala
151).
Perfectionis
(p.
Cambridge University Library, Ee.

iv.
30.
Century.
Fifteenth
14.
Speculum
(p. 151).
de
Utilitate
British
Museum,
Harl. 3852.
Religionis
Regularis
Century,
xxii
Title
15.
LIST OF
Perfecttonis
OTHER MANUSCRIPTS
Place
(p.
and Page where Cited
Scala
152).
16.
Dc Sacrmnento
(p. 156).
Altaris
17.
Dc Sacramento
(P- 157)-
Altaris
18.
Liber Commonitorius de
Mundi Contemptu
157).
(p.
19.
De
Utilitate
1
Tribula60-1).
tionis (pp.
!0.
Augustini
(p. 162).
Soliloquia
21.
De
Utilitate
et
prac-
rogativis Religionis et
praecipue ordinis Carthusiensis

{"p.
165).
The same
165-6).
treatise (pp.
LIST OF PRINTED EDITIONS

Reputed Author
6.
7.
xxiii
Place
Gerson
None
(First
Book
only)
8.
Gerson
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
Thomas k Kempis None None None (in Cierman)

Gerson Gerson
Gerson Gerson
14. 15.
16.
17.
18.
Thomas h Kempis Thomas k Kempis

Gerson
19.
20.
21. 22.
None Thomas a Kempis Thomas h Kempis

lected works)
(his
col
23.
Thomas
Gerson
Gerson
Kempis
24.
25.
26.
Gerson
Gerson
27.
28.
Thomas
Gerson
Kempis
English)
29.
(in
ERRATA
p. 5> line
I
:
for
:
Baarlam read Barlaam.
p. 136, line 4
delete the words
and /o Gerard
Groote.
THOMAS A KEMPIS
HIS
AGE AND BOOK
THE AGE OF THOMAS A KEMPIS
TH E
is
late fourteenth
and early
fifteenth century
it
in
Europe
is
a period
difficult to realise, for
a period
Change
External
both of preparation and dissolution. and decay are visible on every side.
forces,
Internal forces of disruption challenge observation.
attention.
ominous and destructive, compel But change and reconstruction can also The New Learning is beginning to be observed. move almost unnoticed from East to West a fitful
dawn, the precursor of a new day destined to reveal The New vast continents of knowledge and belief. too is come, the Religion of the Inner
Mysticism Soul that
fain
would
shuffle off the mortal coil of
It is everywhere corrupt and unholy formalism. is in It a sudden. on Sweden, England, France,
Germany, The Pope
Italy.
No
one
is
free
from
is
its
influence.
at
Avignon trembles and
afraid.
The
Mysticism moves even faster than the New Learning, and thoughtful men begin to find one or other or both of these movements more imof the West. portant than even the Great Schism
New
THOMAS A KEMPIS
Both are beginning to influence the Universities and even the Great Councils of the Church. Jean le CharHer de Gerson, the most Christian Doctor, last and not the least of the great theologians, carried
from Paris to
Pisa,
from Pisa to Constance, mystical
forces of reform sufficient to abash the monstrous
triarchy that filled the vicariate of Christ.
and the New Mysticism exhaust the reconstructive and recreative Pressure from the East was forces of Christendom. answered by expansion West and South, and the Yet all these forces revelation of new continents. must have seemed vague and unreal enough to the pessimists and worldlings of that generation. Central Europe was distraught with private war and unchecked lawlessness. The German Emperors received no divine gift of government with the beitself the scene of stowal of their crown at Rome
Nor
did
the
New
Learning
every vice, the
home
of every negation of goodness.

rest in
There was no peace, no sense of
any part of Europe, from Ireland to the confines of Asia. England was rent by internal wars and discontent,
following on the desolation of the Black Death. That Oriental plague moving West, in the mid-
fourteenth century, prepared the way for the hundred years of disaster, desolation, shame, and
destruction
the
veritable
reign
of anti-Christ
which preceded, necessitated, but obscured the advent of the new worlds of religion, thought, and exploraOn all sides was the darkness of night. In tion.
Spain were many kingdoms, but the Moor and the Crescent still dominated this part of the extreme From the middle of the thirteenth century West,
when
the
great
Subutai
armies
with
his
marvellously
handled
Mongol
Hungary, all Eastern Europe, had stood in dread of some new portent
the East.
conquered Poland and Europe, and even Central

in
it
century later
tide of
came.
humanity at last overflowed from Asia Minor into Europe, heedless of raging Constantinople and the Byzantine call to the careless West. The Ottoman Turks under Orchan first obtained a permanent position in Europe by the capsome twenty years before ture of Gallipoli in 1358 Thomas a Kempis was born. During his childhood
The Ottoman
they isolated
Constantinople
fall
from the Christian
West, and the
of that city accompanied
by the
Empire on May 29th, 1453, was the completion of a long and disastrous struggle. Some reference to the position of the Eastern Empire must be made, for it throws light on the general conextinction of the Eastern
ception of Christianity that pervaded Europe in the age immediately preceding the Renaissance. The
needs of Constantinople, in face of the age-long threat of the Ottoman, were ever being placed before the The Emperors secure monarchies of Europe.
pleaded that they ruled a buffer kingdom which alone stood between Europe and the hordes of Asia.
Such ground for assistance for the most part fell away in the thirteenth century, when it was seen
4
that
THOMAS A KEMPIS
Europe was open to the East elsewhere and that the Mongol was even a worse foe than the But if the Emperors could no longer Ottoman. the needs of Europe, her superstition play upon would say), or her sense of Christian (as Gibbon was solidarity open to conviction. The Greek had
\}[i^
filioque clause with
which
to barter in times of
of the re-union of Christendom, need. the healing of the schism of the Greek and Latin Churches was ever evoked when the strong arm
The dream
of
the
schismatic
West was needed
to
prevent
the rising of the Eastern Crescent. Never perhaps before in all the doubtful and unhappy Erastian
preoccupations of the Orthodox Church had the precious tenets of Christianity been employed in
so
scandalous
fashion.
At no time did the
Greek Church intend re-union, and yet the farce of reconciliation was maintained by servile and ignoble ecclesiastical politicians for more than a whole So degraded century in face of the Ottoman peril. had Christianity become in its Eastern centre that when St Sophia was dedicated to the uses of
the
Crescent,
it
certainly
suffered
no
spiritual
There was scarcely a degree of degradiminution. dation that the Orthodox Church was not prepared Its embassies to Rome and Avignon, to suffer. made in bad faith and happily crowned with discredit and unsuccess, are among the more lamentable Yet they answered an unconincidents of history. When the learned and scious glorious purpose.

Calabrian
Baarlam in 1339 was despatched as an ambassador by the younger Andronicus to Benedict XII. with a plea for the union of the Churches, he met Petrarch and set in motion that revival of letters But the which resulted in the Classical renaissance. heedless Pope of Avignon and the careless monarchs of Europe rejected all political advances. Nine years
Clement VI., magnificent and infamous, received the envoys of Cantacuzene in Avignon, that cheerful Babylon of the West, and after much entertainment sent Bishops with them on their return to Conlater,
for stantinople to discuss meaningless propositions were the re-union of what both parties pleased to regard as Christendom.
John Palaeologus, a Western both by descent and inclination for his mother was Anne of Savoy was alone perhaps in his desire for the union of the In 1355 he placed the Eastern Church Churches. under the control of Innocent VI. and fourteen years later, when the whole of the Empire, with the exception of Constantinople, was in the hands of
;
the Ottomans, he himself, journeying by sea, visited Urban V., who had just returned from Avignon to
Rome, and admitted the doctrines of the Catholic Church and the double procession of the Holy Ghost. In the same year the German Emperor of the West was also entertained. Urban, says Gibbon, " enjoyed
the glory of receiving in the Vatican the two imperial shadows who represented the majesty of Constantine
and Charlemagne."
Help, however, was not forth-
THOMAS A KEMPIS
coming, and the Emperor of the East returned to Constantinople by sea after a brief arrest for debt at
Venice.
end of the fourteenth century, Constantinople was still isolated from Europe by land when Manuel, the son of John Palaeologus, renewed the attempt to secure the help of the Western princes. It was useless for him to solicit
Thirty years
later,
at the
the aid of
Rome
or Avignon.
to heal.
The Western Church
had
Manuel was magnifientertained in Paris and not less magnificently cently in London, but seething Europe had no interest in
its
own schism
the affairs of the East, and that the danger had passed.
die
Manuel returned to find The mighty Timour had broken the Ottoman power, and a generation was to
before the attack on Constantinople could be resumed in earnest. During this period there was no talk of re-union. Indeed, until after the Council of Constance, the possibility of re-union would have been remote even had the Greeks been earnest in
their Christian professions. Rome for a century and a half before the conclusion
of the Great Schism of the
West had ceased
to
be
the residential see of the Vicar of Christ.
Before
the opening of the fourteenth century the Popes had ceased permanently to reside amid the broils and
dangers of the ruinous

1
city.
Boniface
VIII., in
French dominions. Anagni A breach between the Pope and Philip the Fair resulted in the excommunication of the King and
303,
settled at
in the
was
the expulsion of the Pontiff. His successor, Benedict XL, hurled the harmless bolts of the Church from
Rome, but Clement V., a nominee of the French Court, abandoned the city and led his Court across the Alps in search of a new Rome. In 1308 the
Avignon and acquired its The seventy years of captivity had sovereignty. and begun eight Popes in succession ruled Western Christendom in not unpleasant exile. Clement V. was succeeded by John XX H., Benedict XH., Clement VI., Innocent VI., Urban V., Gregory XL, and Clement VII. Widowed Rome rejoiced to receive Urban V. in 1367, but three years' sojourn was enough, and he returned to die in his beloved Avignon in 1370. His successor, Gregory XL, after seven years by the Rhone, removed the Papal Court once more to Rome, where he died in 1378, and he was succeeded by a Roman Pope, Urban VI. For the moment it seemed as if the widowed and mystic Jerusalem had regained her
wanderers
finally settled at
spouse, but the Cardinals during the summer fled across the Alps and there elected an Anti-Pope,
Clement VII. The Great Schism had begun. The seventy years of captivity had been a fitting prelude to the Petrarch had hardly scenes that were to follow. exaggerated the position when he had declared of " ibi dementia est, peccandi Veritas Avignon,
licentia
magnanimitas
et libertas eximia.
cestus, adulteria, pontificalis lasciviae ludi sunt."
Stupra, inIn
THOMAS A KEMPIS
the struggle that followed between the Babylon of the West and the Jerusalem of Italy we see the forces
of iniquity struggling with the nerveless efforts of The forces of righteousness in political expediency.
the main stood aside from the struggle, if we except the noble figure of Jean Gerson wrestling in the
darkness for the preservation of a Church that had ceased to preserve or even demand the respect of
Christendom.
It is desirable to realise in
some measure these
various forces, for without so doing it is not possible fully to appreciate the most singular position in
which the Christian world to use a comprehensive We must endeavour phrase has ever found itself. to realise an invisible Church recognising Christ and Christ alone as its Founder and Head, and working
without conscious unity of effort for the regeneration of Christendom like yeast in a measure of meal.
We
and
rich,
must
at the
same time
realise
a formal,
visible,
official
Church, highly organised, immensely claiming, and in an extraordinary measure

control
exercising,
over the persons, the purses,

;
a men and of the spiritual personalities Church with incomparable traditions and posa Church that had sessing unlimited power emerged weakened but triumphant from three
;
centuries of conflict
with
the
temporal power of
sated
Europe.
We
have
to
watch
worldliness
and
Church, honeycombed with
this
with
corruption,
rapidly losing its spiritual and its temporal power and becoming a private corporation of enormous wealth under the patronage of its eldest daughter the
We
managers abandon the great capital that created its organisation and settle in a city of Southern France which forthwith becomes the open cloaca of Europe and the Magna Meretrix of the Middle Ages. We see the Catholic Church watching in vain for a spiritual awakening.
Kingdom
of France.
We see
its
see
Rome
sick
almost to death of
Roman
fever and raving with Rienzi as its voice. Further West we see Constantinople in its death throes, false
to the last
and
its
faithless
even to the painted rags that
symbolised
Christianity.
The Orthodox Church was beyond recovery. At the most it could hand on an insane tradition
of corruption and superstition to the most savage tribes of Eastern and Northern Europe. But the
Catholic Church even in the depths of its degradation was great both in its political instincts and its power of recuperation. It had, it had always had, the power of producing both saints and statesmen, and in the hour of its need, while the Church Invisible was slowly permeating Europe with what a writer of
the late fourteenth century called the New Faith,^ it made effort after effort to leave its Sloueh
of
Despond.
Roma
Slothfully, unwilling, it returned to Aeterna, and this was the signal for the huge
forces of degradation to join issue with the political

^
Adam
of
Usk
10
THOMAS A KEMPIS
party which saw that the only hope for CathoHcity lay on the banks of the Tiber.
Nor were
took
result.
the
forces
only
political
that under-
this
notable
its
effort.
The
invisible
to
Church
turned from
dreams.
silent
labours
Reluctant
Popes saw
precipitate the visions and dreamt
Catherine of Siena and Bridget of Sweden disturbed with relentless minds the peace of Avignon
and the
sloth of death.
St Bridget was not least

revivalists
among
the remarkable
of the fourteenth century and was cerShe was born in the tainly the sanest of them all. At of Sweden. one of the House year 1304, Royal
age of sixteen she married Ulpho, Prince of Sweden. She bore him eight children, and after his death in 1344 she retired from the world and devoted herself to good works and a life of austere contemplation. She founded the great double monastery of Wastein in the Diocese of Lincopen in Sweden, and imposed the Rule of St Augustine. Her writings are full of interest, and in the beginning of the sixteenth century had some vogue The most practical minded of women, in England. she endeavoured to combine the life of Mary, who
the
Nericia, in
represented in her phraseology the life contemplative, with the life of Martha, who represented the life active. Some of her sayings are of value as representing the singularly sane outlook of a prominent mystic of the fourteenth century.
"He
that fasteth
muste take hede that he be not

overmoch enfebled and made weyke by
resonable fastyng
"
"
^
11
his un-
The contemplatyve man maye

If
nat be ydel."
he be wery and temptation rise in his prayers he may labour with his handes some honest and if he have nede profitable werke either for him selfe
or for other."
" If the contemplatyve
"
man have
nat sufficient to
lyve
but through his labour than may he make the shorter prayers for his necessary laboure and that labour shalbe the perfection and encreasyng
withal
of his prayer." " Also the contemplatyve

wyl, ofte
man must
hate his
owne
mur-
remembre
his dethe, fly curiosytie, al
muringe ane grudgynge, alway remembre the rightwysenesse of God and take hede of his owne affections.
following passage may be taken to heart toas day deeply as when it was written "The Sonne of God speketh to saynt Bryget and
:
The
the londes of the sayth, he that desyreth to visyte The first is that infydels ought to have v thinges. with trewe conscience he discharge his confessyon
and contrition as though he should forthwith dye. Seconde that he put awaye al lyghtnesse of maners and of apparyl nat takynge hede to newe customes or vanytyes but to such laudable customes as his
^ Certayne revelacyons of Sai7it Birgette {'Lox\don, 1535?, Godfray). Printed with the translation of The I?nitaiwn and The Golden Epistle The Revelations were first printed at Lubec in 1492. of St Bernard.
12
THOMAS A KEMPIS
auncesters have used before tyme. Thyrdly that he have no temporall thynge but for necessyte and to the honoure of God and yf he knowe any thynge un-
ryghtwysely gotten eyther by hym selfe or by his auncesters that he restore it whether it be lytel or
great.
Fourthly that he labour to the intent that
the unfaythful men may come to the trewe catholycal faythe not desyrynge theyr goodes ne catel or any other thynge but to the onely necessitie of the
that he have full wyll gladly to of God and so to dyspose hymhonour dye selfe in laudable conversation that he maye deserve Amen." to come to a good and a blessed endyng. It may be imagined that a lady possessed with such ideas filled the Courts of Rome and Avignon with fear and aversion. She strove with all her The of Avignon. to the abandonment secure might return of Urban V. in 1367 must have filled her
body.
Fifthly
for the
with joy, while his flight to die in Avignon in 1370 was certainly calculated to point a moral. Bridget is said to have foretold the speedy death of the
His successor, Gregory XI., rePope. mained at Avignon the prey of superstitious fears, and when at last he was drawn to Rome by Saint Catherine of Siena he died within a year, warning men on his death-bed against visionaries of either It would seem legitimate to think that the sex. experiences of these saints in Avignon and Rome, would have taught them that it was not the seat of its universal and the Church but its mind corruptfugitive
13
Saint Bridget's faith ing influence that mattered. in the Church, however, won for her a posthumous
reward.
She died
in
1373 at the age of seventy
in
Rome,
after a prayerful pilgrimage to Jerusalem,
and
within a few years an unreformed Church with its centre at Rome sanctioned, at Basle, her Revelations
and enrolled
the Saints.
her, at the
Council of Constance,
among
Saint Catherine, the daughter of James Benincasa, a From childhood she dyer, was born at Siena in 1 347.
at the
sought the contemplative life. On her refusal to marry age of twelve she was deprived of the means of
solitary contemplation, "
and henceforth, we are
told,^
taught her to make herself another solitude in her heart; where amidst all her occupations
the Holy Ghost
she considered herself always as alone with God to whose presence she kept herself no less attentive, than
;
she had no exterior employment to distract her." With regard to this period of her life, she wrote (in her
if
" Concerning Go(s Providence) that our Lord had taught her to build in her soul a private closet,
treatise.
strongly vaulted with the divine providence, and to keep herself always close and retired there he assured
;
her that by this means she should find peace, and perpetual repose in her soul, which no storm or tribulation could disturb or interrupt." In 1 365 she received the habit of the third Order of St Dominic and, enter-
ing a nunnery, for three years never spoke to any one but God and her Confessor. "Her days and nights
*
Lives of the Saints^
vol. iv. p. 330.
14
THOMAS A KEMPIS
in
were employed
:
the delightful exercises of con-
the fruits whereof were supernatural templation a most ardent love of God, and zeal for the lights,
conversion of sinners."
This
saint,
famous
for
her
life, her visions, and her mystic treatises (such as that on Consummate Perfection), ventured in June
1376 into the tainted atmosphere of Avignon and interceded with Gregory XI. on behalf of the city
of Florence.
That
Catherine of Siena
superstitious Pope turned to for a solution of his doubts.
He
duty
had vowed
?
to return to
Rome
what was
his
" Fulfil
It is
She replied without knowledge of the vow, what you have promised to God."
a curious spectacle, the vision of these holy moving amidst the corruption of Avignon and
women
Rome.
Christ,
They represented the invisible Church of and they were moved to intervene in the affairs of the visible Church of Anti-Christ. A sense of wonder fills the mind as we see the Cardinals of Avignon questioning the Saint of Siena on the meaning of the Interior Life, and listening to her revelations as to the sufferings of the Founder of Christianity and as to the revolutions of earthly Little good, one must think, could come kingdoms. of such trafficking between the forces of good and Yet she touched the superstitious heart of evil. corruption, and one cannot forget that Christ Himself
argued with the doctors
left
Avignon
in
After she she wrote more September 1376
in the
Temple.
than once to the wavering Pope, urging his return

to
far
15
as
in
He appears to have followed her Rome. as Genoa for further advice, and at last,
1377, in fear of forces visible
January
matising
and
invisible,
carried his
all
Court
to
Rome,
to die there anathe-
visionaries.
Catherine threw herself
into the Papal election of 1378 with all the energy of a politician, and until her death, in April 1380, worked actively for Urban VI. and against Clement
Vn. and
the revived
Court of Avignon.
These
women, and other

sides in the Great
less notable visionaries
who took
Schism that followed the death of Gregory XL, served no adequate purpose in the regeneration of Christendom by their efforts to bring down from Heaven that pattern of Rome which was evidently laid up in their celestial visions.
The
to
the temporal make new the
visions of a Jeanne d'Arc might bring victory arm, but they did nothing to
More heart of Christendom. sinks needed to cleanse the of were worldly forces Europe. Womanhood was accounted little in the days of the Great Schism. Yet it is not altogether just to speak of the famous
man who rendered
the revival of
Roman
le
Catholicism
Charlier de
possible as a worldly force.
Jean Gerson was without any doubt the most remarkable personality of the age in which the De Imitatione Christi was written and the tragedy of the Great He was born of obscure parentage Schism enacted. in the hamlet of Gerson, near the village of Barby, on December 14th, 1363. His mother was a woman
16
THOMAS A KEMPIS
of notable holiness, and Gerson compared her to The cure of Monica, the mother of Augustine. the village saw in his devout little choir boy the
seeds of great things and sent him to school at Rethel. Hence he passed to the College of Rheims at the age of fourteen, and some years later, pro-
vided with what

out,
Paris.
we should
cheered by many He entered the Royal College of Navarre,

his friend. his
a scholarship, he set blessings, on the long walk to

call
where the famous Pierre dAilly became
He
immediately made
mark both
in
University
affairs
and as a student of the Trivium and Ouadrivium. So popular did he become, that he was
" " elected as the representative of the Nation of France in the College for the purposes of the election
of the Rector.
In 1381 he took his degree in Arts
and passed to the study of Theology. About this date he adopted the name of Gerson as a result of
punishment undergone through the confusion of his
personality
with that of a
man
of a similar birth
name.
There was perhaps a
certain foreshadowing
for
of the future in the
new name
Gerson may be
compared with the Hebrew word meaning exile. In 1387 an apparently fortuitous opportunity gave
Gerson
One
his great chance in life. of the startling theological controversies of the
Middle Ages suddenly arose. A monk named Jean de Montesson propounded the not unreasonable theory that the mother of Our Lord was conceived in sin, and that the contrary doctrine was opposed to Holy Writ.

The
proposition and directed the
17
Theological Faculty of Paris condemned the
monk
to retract.
He
maintained his position, and was denounced to the University who confirmed the judgment of the
Paris.
Faculty, and referred the offender to the Bishop of The bishop passed sentence forbidding
to continue the offence of promulgating The monk appealed to the Anti-Pope
Montesson
his doctrine.
at
Avignon.
Clement
VH.
nominated
Com-
mission headed by three Cardinals to consider the The University was represented at the question.
hearing by two religious and two secular doctors

(including Pierre dAilly, Grand-master of Navarre). DAilly took Gerson with him to Avignon.
in
In 1387 the Great Schism of the West had been progress nine years, and Christendom was divided
beyond repair in its allegiance. Gibbon has briefly summed up this question of allegiance during the
Schism.
the
"
The
nation
vanity rather than the interest of determined the Court and Clergy of
states
France.
The
of
Savoy,
Sicily,
Cyprus,
and Scotland were inclined by their example and authority to the obedience of Clement VH., and, after his decease, of Benedict XIII. Rome, and the principal states
Arragon,
Castille,
Navarre
Germany, Portugal, England, the Low Countries, and the kingdoms of the North, adhered to the prior election of Urban VI., who was succeeded by Boniface IX., Innocent VII., and Gregory XII." The schism literally rent the most intimate countries
of Italy,
18
THOMAS A KEMPIS
:
asunder
England and Scotland differed in their obedience, the Spanish kingdoms and Portugal owned a different spiritual head. This was scarcely the season at which to raise for discussion and decision
a question of such curious moment as that of the Immaculate Conception, nor was Avignon at this
period exactly the place that could with decency be Morechosen for the discussion of such a question.
over, a discussion before
Clement and a decision by Clement could not possibly be accepted by Rome. It was perhaps this fact that delayed for something
five
like
centuries
the
official
enunciation of the
doctrine that the Anti-Pope was
now
called
upon
to
examine.
addressing Clement VII. and his College of Cardinals. He was followed by whose keen Gerson, eloquence and transparent piety drew forth the personal approval of the schismatic
DAilly spoke
first,
Three days later Clement pronounced in Pope. favour of the University, and Montesson forthwith
fled
from Avignon to Arragon, and two years later was declared contumacious and excommunicated. It is noticeable that he based his doctrine upon the
words of Holy Writ, and refused to be answered by any other evidence. It was a sign of the times. The Invisible Church with one accord was turning back from formalism and tradition to Scripture. The authority of Scripture was not to be over-ridden
by any other authority. In Montesson's opinion not only was the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception

not
19
found
in,
but
Holy Scripture. possible for him to yield, though like many others he preserved his loyalty to the Pope of his nation,
and
his
it was absolutely denied by, That being the case, it was im-
one of the few countries that admitted spiritual sway, and where the penalty of exfled to
communication could run. The decision of Clement was never binding on the faithful. This Apollinarian doctrine was supported by Gerson at the Council of Constance, and was perhaps implied as a doctrine of the Church at the Council of Trent, but it was not until 1854 that it was officially imposed upon the Roman Church by Pius IX. The University of Paris, however, had no doubt on the subject, and expelled the Dominicans from their midst on the ground that Montesson was one of In 1403 Gerson secured their return. them. In 1387, on his return from Avignon, Gerson took orders, and became, in the words of a conHis piety now, temporary, "a seraph at the altar." as always, and his fervent faith, were undeniable. At this time he wrote a famous panegyric on Saint
Louis, applying to
him the phrase,
servire atctejn Deo,
The style of the tract is noticeable. It regnare est. is full of recondite allusions to history and ancient
authors.
It
has nothing in
common
with the style
of the Imitation. In 1392 he became a Doctor in Theology. At this date dAilly was Chancellor of the University and Confessor to Charles VI., the mad king.
20
THOMAS A KEMPIS
and
Gerson's progress thenceforward was very rapid, it is worthy of record that he drew into the
rehgious Hfe of the time many of his numerous brothers and sisters. His intense affection for them
his parents are notable facts in a Hfe that for the most part was absorbed in the mad whirl of a bad age. His active mind saw the evils of the
and
and was not overwhelmed by them. He saw the Schism ruining the Catholic Church, he saw the
time,
corruption of the great cities, the intolerable conditions of life even in France, that most habitable
part of the West, and the general signs of dissolution in the society of Europe. On the other hand he knew well that there was reason for hope. In the
what he did not know was not must and he have been conscious of the knowledge,
way
of scholarship
slow revival of classical scholarship, of the wealth of learning introduced from the East by Barlaam
the
Calabrian
in
1339,
and
by the
successive
embassies from the Bosphorus. He, too, knew of the hidden but ceaseless religious revival that was
moving throughout Europe. He was himself at heart, though not by education, a mystic, a profound
contemplative, who looked earnestly for the Kingdom In education and religion he saw the of God.
twofold force that would regenerate Christendom. They were the forces that had made his own career
possible, that
had raised him from obscurity
into
The education of the doubtful daylight of kings. children seemed to him the primary secret of re-

generation, and he spent the years after in the teaching of little children.
his
21
fall
His power as an orator was great. He was the founder of the great line of French preachers. His speech was free and merciless, but this did not exclude him from the delivery of sermons to the Court, where by the year 1396 he had secured It says a good deal for Gerson great influence. that when on the elevation of Pierre d'Ailly to the episcopate in 1398, he himself was offered the Chancellorship of the University of Paris, he was able to refuse the posts of Almoner and Confessor to the King which dAilly had held with the This great office should not, he Chancellorship.
felt,
As Chancellor
that
be hampered by personal service to the King. of Notre Dame he was in a position
had been occupied by one hundred and sixty bishops, thirty-nine cardinals, and six popes Gregory IX., Adrian V., Boniface VI 1 1., Innocent VI., Gregory XL, and Clement VI I. ^ From the year 1227 when
Gregory IX., the nephew of Innocent, became Pope the Chancellorship had been a step to the Papal throne. Adrian V. became Pope in 1276; in 1294 Benedict
Cajetan ascended the throne as Boniface VII. Innocent VI. (1352), Gregory XI. (1370), and Clement
VII. (1378), were
in
Gerson's
was the reigning Pope in a position that might quite possibly lead
^
age, and the latter of his obedience. Gerson was

to the
own
See Jean Gerson, sa
Vie,
son temps, ses auvres, by A. L. Masson
(Lyons, 1894).
22
THOMAS A KEMPIS
He
threw himself into the work
throne of Avignon.
of the Chancellorship with characteristic energy. He himself taught in the Cloister School the children
of the poor, declaring that they wêre the children of God and the inheritors of the Kingdom of Heaven,
and that it was therefore as great an honour to teach them as to teach the Dauphin. He went as the
representative of Charles VI. in a deputation of the University to Benedict XHI., the successor of Clement VH. In the year 1400 he accepted, in his desire to see practical clerical work, a cure at
to combine with his work was during this period that he composed several works in French, including Le TraiU de Meridicitd Spirihielle, He did all he could, by writing in the vulgar tongue, and by means of
Bruges, which he
managed
as Chancellor.
It
education, to bring the best thought into the lives of It was in recognition of this fact that the people.
he was called "le Docteur du peuple et le Docteur This use of the vernacular was des petits enfants." Gerson's most important educational work. perhaps His treatise de scavoir bien motirir was largely used B C des simples His " in the parish churches.
LA
gens
is
was also much in vogue. The introduction a short statement of the undenominationalism which
to
"
seemed
the
enfants,
him
"
sufficient as a
working religion
it
for
people.
fils
Entendez-vous,"
runs,
"
petits
et filles, et aultres
gens simples, je vous

;
escripray en franôis cet

nostre,
ABC,
fist
laquelle
Dieu
qui contient la Patre de sa propre bouche
V.
to cturihfavcfupuio.i:0 ttDm'mBjitmtuJ.f
ana. ^crfiit iihiî rjuiljfmnmimt'q^TOta
îrUit.
I qm Cpln IfcaT^ aiifajnîni fn mmmimmtt,
r4
noil fecmt fiiivîftf6 utiwCa

S/^Tcrscrrovi-f^^
mm cBattm tmu
fi^^
IIIK FIRST INJ)KX OF Al'l i;r.S of THE FIRST I500K AND PART OF CHAFTKR OF IHK FIRST liOOK OF THK TRKATISK (AFI.KI) "MUSKA ECCLESIASTICA:" FROM MS. 536 IN THK I.AMISK'IH PAl.ACK LIISRARV. THIS MS. CONSISTS OF THE FIRST THREE HOOKS OF IIIK IREATISE "DE nilTAriONE CHRISIT" AND BK1.0N(;S TO THE IIRST HALF OF THE FIFTEENIII ÊNTUR^.
(
II

I'ave
; ;
23
Maria, que I'Ange Gabriel adressa a la Vierge Marie et le Credo qui fut fait par les Apotres et les X Commandements, et aultres points de notre religion chretienne, lesquels ont ete reveles de Dieu, et montres au commencement en la claire lumiere de
les
"
grande foy dedans et auxquels on doit
ames des
saintes personnes,
croire."
The
but
it is
"
are denominational enough, other points clear that Gerson chiefly laid stress, in the
folk,
teaching of simple
Christianity.
on the simple
facts of Bible
The interesting discussion on the seven and so forth, is the seven virtues, gifts of the spirit, full of mediaeval formalism, enlightened with a very human touch, but the heart of the matter is in the
truth.
elements of Christian fact and
The
spiritual,
educational, and material needs of the age were ever present to the heart, ever stirring the mind of this
In a far wider sense than great Christian doctor. Saint Bridget he realised the interaction of the life
In every life, contemplative and the life active. he felt, there must be a mingling of prayer and
work incapable of disentanglement. With simple people faith and work must both be simple, but must But the world, he saw, was both be in vital union.
going very ill at the end of the fourteenth century. Writing from Bruges to Pierre dAilly he declared " le corps de la chretiente est convert de plaies de la Tout se precipite du mal dans le tete aux pieds.
pire, et
chacun apporte sa part a la masse d'iniquites." This was written in regard to the superstitions and
24
THOMAS A KEMPIS
gross abuses of the parish churches on Feast Days such as the Holy Innocents' Day. That on such a
day the children's day supreme eclipse seemed
religion should suffer its to him significant of the
canker at the very base of society. If the world to be redeemed, redemption must begin with the children. Therefore in his little tract de Innocentia
was
Puerili he attacked
age must attack influence of bad pictures and bad books. If the fountain is poisoned how can the rivers of life be pure ? But it was not only impurity but the grossest Hence he attacked superstition that tainted the age. in no measured terms the pseudo science of astrology
:
as the educationalist of every the corruption of childhood by the
"c'est par I'experience, par les lois divines et morales que la raison humane doit se diriger, et non par des
ridicules." His Platonic mysticism a double manifestation of Divine Power recognised in the natural and the supernatural worlds, but such
superstitions
manifestation was essentially reasonable, and was both

spiritually
But
it
and intellectually degraded by superstition. was not only with his pen that Gerson
taught the first principles of that social renaissance of which he was the first expositor in Europe, the spiritual forerunner of Fenelon, Rousseau, and
was an eloquent preacher. At a Provincial Council at Rheims he attracted ereat attention, while his famous sermon at Notre Dame on The Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ was preached to an immense congregation. He had become the
the Revolution.
He

man of the hour, and when, after the death of Duke of Burgundy in 1404, a civil war between
25
the
the
with Burgundian and the Orleanist parties combined the plague to ruin the whole land, the people turned His for help to the eloquent Chancellor of Paris. influence at Court and his power of brilliant and
fearless
of speech were used unstintingly on behalf
the people.
He
fiercely attacked the Orleanist party,
and
great sermon of October 7th, 1405, noble preached before the King, his family, and the the detail in terrible out set he of families France,
in
his
miseries of the land.
of the sermon will give some idea of the state of France at the opening of the fifteenth
summary
enough Vivat Rex! Vivat Rex! Vivat Rex! Vive le Roy! Vive le Roy Vive le Roy Vive corporellement, Vive spirituvive moralement et politiquement
century.
"
The opening passage

! !
is
striking
ellement et pardurablement prays for good counsellors for the King, good education for the
!
"
He
The troops must be properly paid in King's son. " Se ils order to prevent them pillaging the people sur les et roberont ne payent, ils pilleront povres eens tres oultragfeusement." Then follows the vivid
:
passage
in
which the Chancellor describes the

taxation of the people.
results
of the cruel
"Las!
Un
povre homme aura-t-il paye son imposition sa taille, sa gabelle, son fouage, son quatriesme, les esprons du roy, la saincture de la reyne, les truages, les chaucees, les passages, peu lui demeure puis viendra encore
;
26
THOMAS A KEMPIS
taille
une
qui sera creee, et sergents de venir et de Le povre homme n'aura engager pots et pouilles. a sinon pain manger, par adventure, aucun peu de
seigle
ou d'orge. Sa povre femme gerra, et auront quatre ou six petits enfants au fouyer, ou au four
par adventure, sera chauld, lesquels demanderont du pain, criant a la rage de faim. La povre mere si n'aura que bouter es-dents un peu de pain
qui,
y ait du sel." To increase the misery of this awful but common picture, we see the brutal unpaid These were the soldiery adding infamy to woe. simple annals of the poor. How can the King, cries
ou
il
the preacher, with a flash of the deadly irony for which he was famous, "how can the King, seeing
such servitude,
call
himself Francorum
Rex
the
King of the Free."

Rousseau,
is in
Up
the ages
we hear
lo
!
the cry of
Man
is
born
free,
and
everywhere he
chains. Gerson is almost brutally frank. He describes the peasant as " pille par princes ou par gens d'armes." He adds emphatically, "Toy, Prince,
tu ne fais pas
souffres."
tilz
maux,
is
il
est vrai,
mais tu
les
The
receiver
worse than the

all
thief.
:
Children,
"
men, beasts,
are
dying
of hunger
Dieu, par sa grace, y vueille mettre remede par le moyen de vous, tres nobles et exceilents seigneurs, a fin que le roy vive de sa vie civile et politique Vivat
:
rex
We
may
more than make a great sensation

permeated through the country
in
well believe that this great sermon did at the time. It
manuscript form.

The
earliest extant
27
manuscript is one of 1406, which belonged to the King's niece, Marie, the daughter of It v/as It was not forgotten. the Due de Berri.
in 1561 and printed in the year 1500, and again of the case of statement the we see In it 1588.
the people as it was to be presented by the direct At the time forerunners of the Great Revolution.
added
intervention in social questions merely Gerson's already great reputation and The Duke strengthened the University of Paris.
this
bold
to
of Orleans complained in vain. The problem of the hour
was,
however,
to
the
Great Schism.
Upon
its
solution
seemed
depend
the future of Europe.
University of Paris movement that led in the an played important part At first it disliked to the restoration of Catholicity.
the idea of recognising the Anti-Pope Clement VII., but it was divided on the subject, the various
The
"nations" foUowino- the views of the nationalities
When Pietro Thomathey nominally represented. Rome as Boniface at VI. celli succeeded Urban IX. in 1389, the University proposed that the
Schism should be ended either by a General Council
or a compromise, or the retirement of both popes. The majority of the cardinals favoured the last
and Clement VII. seems to have died of The chagrin in 1394 on learning this decision. Schism might now well have ended, but the
proposal,
cardinals at
and elected
Avignon suddenly changed their policy as their choice. Pope Benedict XIII. To
28
deal with the
THOMAS A KEMPIS
new
ecclesiastical
an
This body
popes,
King called together or council at Paris in 1395. assembly recommended the retirement of both
situation the
resign despite the prayers of the University and of the King's envoys that he would not tear the seamless
but
Benedict absolutely refused to
garment of
Christ.
recommended the withdrawal
second assembly of 1398 of obedience with
the cessation of supplies, and the troops of the King actually besieged the Pope, whose cardinals had fled,
in
Avignon.
At
this
moment
the
Duke
of Orleans
intervened on behalf of the Lord of Avignon, and the party of reform were compelled to yield. Gerson
heading a deputation from the University to the inflexible Benedict in 1403, appealed for reunion, that Jerusalem might no longer be widowed and desolate.
little
had with great regret recognised Benedict, and was gained by the recognition, Boniface IX. died at Rome in 1404, and the Roman cardinals proposed that Benedict should resign and end the schism. This was refused, and they thereupon elected
He
Cosmo
Meliorati as Innocent VII.

all
The new pope

even to the
took an oath to do
that
was
possible,
renunciation of the See, to restore peace. He died of old age in November 1406, and was succeeded
by the Venetian, Ange Corrario, as Gregory XII. Gerson approached both popes in order to secure reunion, but the efforts were fruitless, and he continued to labour tirelessly both with pen and voice to create a new public opinion on the whole
29
question of Church Government and Church Reform. In January 1408 Charles VI. of France declared
re-union were not established before Ascension and a sole pope elected, his kingdom would day cease to be neutral. Benedict at once excommunicated the King, and placed the kingdom under an interdict. He was a really strong pope, and had the Church been united in his time would have
that
if
The University replied gone far as a reformer. the by excommunicating Pope as a heretic and a A third Gallic schismatic, whom none need obey. Council was called, and a position of neutrality was
adopted
until
the assembly of a General Council.
The
call
other nations agreed, and it was decided to a General Council of the Church at Pisa.
this
moment France was in a furious uproar. The Duke of Orleans was assassinated by the orders of John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy, on November 23, 1407, but such was the hatred in
which the King's brother was held that practically all Paris sided with Duke John, and the Orleans were forced in 1409, after his triumphant family return from Flanders, to come to some terms with him. But Gerson, though the enemy of the Duke of Orleans, found it impossible to justify the murder, and denounced the crime in unmeasured terms.
At
He
attacked the University supporters of the
Duke
of Burgundy, led by Doctor Jean Petit, with all his power, and became at once the head in Paris of
the
Orleanist
party
henceforth
known
as
the
30
THOMAS A KEMPIS
Armagnacs in consequence of the marriage of the young Duke of Orleans with the daughter of the Count of Armagnac. That was the position in France when the Council of Pisa was opened in the Cathedral on Lady Day 1409. It was an immense Assembly, and included doctors in theology
from all parts of Europe. The rival popes, Gregory XII. and Benedict XIII., were summoned, and in
absence were declared contumacious, and the vacancy of the Holy See was announced. Gerson,
their
who was
here,
the deputy of the

later
as
Church of France, argued (thereby drawing on himself the
wrath of the Vatican, still muttering even to-day), that a General Council could depose and was The cardinals forthwith on superior to the pope. this adopting argument entered into conclave and
the Cardinal of Milan, Pietro Filargo of He Candia, a Franciscan and a doctor of Paris. chose the name of Alexander V. At the request of
elected
the Council, Gerson harangued the new pope. He called upon him to restore the kingdom to Israel
in all her former splendour. Alexander agreed to the propositions put forward by the Council, and announced that another Council would be called
together in 141 the Church.
to consider the
Reformation of
The
was an addition
only result that the Council of Pisa produced to the number of popes, and a further
rent in the seamless
garment which
in the
the time signified the Catholic Church.
jargon of Indeed the
31
Church was about to face the crowning scandal of The pontificate of Alexander the Middle Ages. was brief He had settled at Bologna, but called
the fickle inhabitants of the restless city He died while he at once set out on his journey.
to
Rome by
crossing the Apennines on May 3, 14 10, after a The pontificate of ten months and fifteen days.
election of his successor illustrates with
an unspeakthe
able
Roman ungodliness Church at the time. As a matter of policy it was Yet it was not the desirable to end the schism.
force
the
utter
of
seamless garment of Christ that was in danger, but the wealth-getting capacity of the Western Church.
The
talk of peace and reunion of a few men like Gerson
except in the mouths was sheer hypocrisy.
almost obvious to the unprejudiced student of history, it would be difficult absolutely to
Although
bring
this is
the charge of hypocrisy to the official Church were it not for the action of the conclave of
home
cardinals
who met
at
Rome
to elect a successor to
Alexander V.
they chose was Baldassarre Cossa, Cardinal of Bologna, who ascended the pontifical throne
The man
under the divine name of John John XXIII. He was, says Gibbon, the most profligate of mankind. His crimes, his loathsome offences against every law
of
God and man, were
notorious in his
own day before
his election.
a jovial monster, the details of whose iniquities have been made the subject of There original research by a German specialist.
He was
32
THOMAS A KEMPIS
particular reason why he should have been elected, except that he represented the current taste
in
was no
wickedness of the
this
to find that
Roman cardinals. It is painful modern Roman Catholic writers dealing
period, such polished and sympathetic writers as M. A. L. Masson (to whose life of Gerson
with
students must be indebted), should not only accept without comment the fact of the election of Pope
all
John
XXI
1 1.,
but should actually complain of the
action of the Civil
power
in
detaining him
in
prison
after his deposition.
The
position of
modern Roman
Catholicism
is
not strengthened by refusing to recog-
nise that Anti-Christ
year 1410.
in the
was reigning in Rome in the Nothing perhaps is more astonishing
remarkable history of the mediaeval papacy than the acceptance of John by the Reform party. A strain of weakness, a yielding to expediency runs through the character of Gerson, and the fact that he not only placed himself within the obedience of
the new Pope, but actually accepted at his hands the appointment of Penitencier de I'Eglise de Paris is perhaps the chief stain upon a great character. His position was, however, singularly difficult. John secured the recognition of the University of Paris, and the anti-Gerson party led by
Jean
It is University was very strong. if Gerson had refused to that probable accept John as the legitimate successor of the man appointed
Petit
in
the
by
the general Council of Pisa, his position as Chancellor
would have become
intolerable.
It
was bad

enough
in
33
any event in the interval between the The sons of the Councils of Pisa and Constance. late Duke of Orleans were endeavouring to avenge The whole country was their father's murder.
ravaged by the conflicting forces of the Armagnacs and the Burgundians. Paris was sacked by the white-hooded Cabochiens or Burgundians on April 28th, 141 3. They were led by Caboche and Jean
Gerson himself escaped with difficulty, and watched from the towers of Notre Dame the deIn struction of his house and his beloved books.
Petit.
the following September the
Armagnacs
carried the
a desperate conflict capital by assault, Gerson, at the price of conpeace was restored. siderable self-respect, retained his ascendency in the University, and preached a sermon of reconciliation
after
and
Martin des Champs. Pope John would not have been abashed had ecclesiastical Europe shrunk from him, but he had to face no such difficulty.
at Saint
Having won the University of Paris, and Gerson, he had won all. He was elected at Bologna, but passed on to Rome, where he made fourteen cardinals,
including three members of the University. It was not long before the forces of evil as represented by John came into active conflict with the re-
forming
or
one shape or another formed gave political strength to the Invisible Church. Central Europe was seething with discontent. The connection between Bohemia and England due to
forces,
which
in
the marriage of Anne, the daughter of

c
King Wences-
34
las,
THOMAS A KEMPIS
to
Richard
portation into
of England, had led to the imBohemia, and thence to Germany, of

II.
Wiclivism.
in
hand.
Social and religious discontent went hand vile and corrupt Church and a brigand
baronage were faced by an incensed peasantry and by a deep religious movement long stirring and now roused to active life by the passionate preachWithin a month of the election ing of John Hus. of John XXIII., the official Church had begun its not on the attack on the real forces of reform
reformers of Pisa, not on mediating reformers like Gerson, but on the men who, as far as could be seen,
represented the great under-current of holiness and

faith,
which men the real danoer
like the official
Pope recognised
Catholicism.
at
as
to
Established
In
Prague, June and in the following March, Pope John XXIII. It in solemn form excommunicated John Hus. was a dramatic moment in the history of ChrisHus replied that he would only obey the tianity. Pope in so far as his commands were in accordance The excommunication was with those of Christ. renewed and the city of Prague laid under an The issue was boldly joined and the interdict.
1410, Wiclif's
works were burnt
combat between Christ and Anti-Christ in terms It remained to be seen what the official beo-un. o Church, as distinct from the official Pope, would do.
Would
first
Gerson, one of the greatest influences in the Church, a keen reformer and a theologian of the
rank, support a policy deliberately
aimed
at

suppressing
in
all
35
that remained of spiritual Christianity
Europe
A General Council had been promised for 141 2, and John had the effrontery to call it at Rome. It met early in 141 3. It was very sparsely attended. Rome
Gregory under the protection of Ladislaus of Moreover, Naples or to those of Benedict XIII. had not scandal of The improved. John's reputation his life, though it scarcely shocked the cardinals, was The not attractive to the bishops of Christendom. was a Bull carried the act against writings of only Wiclif. Having thus pledged the Church to the policy
XII.
offered few attractions to the followers of
now
living
of suppressing reform, John adjourned the sittings of the Council, the resumption to take place at Constance
on All Saints' Day, 14 14. In fact it met two days It was the scene of Gerson's greatest triumphs. later. For the moment he had secured his position in Paris, and his journey to Constance was one of singular interest to himself, for he passed through Rheims, where he received almost royal honours, and revisited his old home. The Council's first business was to consider the disunion of
official
Christen-
dom.
was supported by France, Poland, J ohn XXIII. England, Hungary, Portugal, the kingdoms of the North, and parts of Italy and Germany. Practically the whole of what is now Protestant Europe supported
this sinister representative
of
Roman
at
Catholicism.
Benedict
XIII.,
now
resident
Peniscola,
was
supported by Castile, Arragon, Navarre, Scotland,
36
Corsica,
THOMAS A KEMPIS
and Sardinia, and by the Counts of Foix and Armagnac. Gregory XII. was the nominee of
part of the
kingdom of Naples, Romagna,

of the
part of
Rhine, Germany, Bavaria, the Palatinate a Hesse, Treves, Brunswick, Luxembourg, part of the and and the electorates of Mayence Cologne, territorial bishops of Worms, Spires, and Verdun. The seamless garment of the Church was indeed rent,
and wondering Europe, distraught with every misery, believed that the age of Anti-Christ had come. The work before the Council was immense, and
indeed dangerous,
safety of the
quarters.
but Sigismund guaranteed the all delegates who poured in from

as
the
representative of the University of Paris and ambassador of the King of France, is said to have led to Constance no less than
Gerson,
two hundred doctors of
A hundred thousand flocked to the town, have observers are reported to The including eighteen thousand ecclesiastics. discuss errors to Council had three main subjects
Paris.
:
against the
discipline,
faith,
the re-establishment of ecclesiastical
and the extinction of the Schism.
who had
in
called, or
John, induced the Emperor Sigismund
to call, the Council,
order to have
at the first sitting evihis election confirmed.
was present
;
He
preside.
he was above both the dently feared no rebuke He claimed to moral and the civil law of Europe. An accident prevented this final blow to
the moral authority of the Church. The representatives of Benedict and Gregory refused to take part in

the proceedings
37
if this were allowed, and as their was presence necessary in order to heal the Schism,, John was pressed to abdicate. He agreed, and the worthy Pierre d'Ailly declared that this act showed grandeur of soul. Such an utterance by a man of the undoubted personal goodness of dAilly seems The truth was that all things incomprehensible. were to be sacrificed to a policy of expediency that would secure once more a United Church. If Saint Gregory could have recourse to expediency, could lavish letters of almost fulsome adulation on the
murderer of the Emperor Maurice, surely an exChancellor of the University of Paris could praise the spiritual grandeur of the most profligate of mankind.
He But John was under no misapprehension. understood the formulae of the Middle Ages and,
having put off the sheltering crown, fled for his life to Schaffouse, where he placed himself under the
protection of the Emperor Frederick of Austria. He was the third anti-Pope, and it was the business
of the distressed Council to supply the Church with an official representative. Gerson once more con-
vinced the not reluctant assembly of the Church that a General Council is superior to a Pope, and
at
the twelfth session, on

It is
May
25th,
14 15,
John
perhaps not altogether a matter for surprise that he accepted the decision of the Council and agreed not to entertain the idea of
re-election
XXni. was deposed.
even
if
he were invited
The
fact
was
that he
was
at this date in the
hands of the Emperor
38
THOMAS A KEMPIS
Sigismund, and the secular arm looked with disfavour on offences and on a career that Gibbon
in a mordant and unpleasant For three years the ex- Pope was detained epigram. in prison by Sigismund, a fact which fills M. Masson with indignation. To those faithful persons who believe that the efforts of Gerson, d'Ailly, and the moderate reformers of Constance had a cleansing effect on the Church, may be com-
has deftly
summed up
mended
this
the
last
stage
of
John's
career.
With
stage Gibbon fortunately was not familiar. His comment would have been justified, and one more bitter gibe against Christianity would have been recorded. Indeed it was difficult for an
'
historian of the eighteenth century, dealing only with the history of Christianity in Rome, to realise
any good thing could come out of Nazareth. Cossa returned to Rome after his release from prison. He was familiar with the city The before his adventure as a pontiff long bitterest days of the Schism were among his He was in Rome when pleasantest recollections. Adam of Usk, the English clerical fugitive from
that
justice,
He was then 1402. Cardinal-Deacon of the title of St Eustace, and

arrived
there
in
received
the
to
him on foot, Cosimo dei

Innocent
wanderer kindly, was kissed by hand, and cheek, and passed him on
Migliorati,
who
the
afterwards became
ripest
VII.
This
was
period
says,
of
Roman
simony, the period, as
Adam
when

"
39
everything was bought and sold, so that benefices were given not for desert, but to the highest Cossa must have been present at the bidder."
great
scene
of
of
September
and
29th,
1404,
when an
embassy came to
Avignon obedience Rome upon Boniface IX. a man gorged with simony to endeavour to Boniface bring him into the way of re-union. " shrieked at the embassy Thy lord is false, " to which Pierre anti-Christ schismatic, and very de Rabat, Bishop of St Pons de Tomieres, in the " My province of Narbonne, replied with warmth and he sits upon lord is holy, just, true, catholic " and added with bitter the true seat of St Peter
the kings of the
waited
meaning, "nor
is
he simoniac."
Benedict XIII., the Lord of Avignon, was indeed almost the only respectable papal figure of that age.
He had some conception of the dignity of the episcopal

office.
face
Rabat's reply appears to have smitten BoniAdam of Usk, at any rate, attributes his death
two days later to the interview and the punishment of God. He was succeeded by Cossa's friend, Cosimo dei Migliorati, the nominal Cardinal of Bologna.
It is at this
date that
"
;
Adam
tells
his story of the
Roman
wolves
I
of St Peter,
Being lodged near the Palace watched the habits of the wolves and
For, while dogs, often rising at night to this end. the watch-dogs barked in the gateways of their
masters' houses, the wolves carried off the smaller
dogs from
the
midst of
the
larger
ones,
and
40
although,
THOMAS A KEMPIS
when
thus
seized,
the
dogs, hoping
to
be defended by their larger companions, howled the more, yet the latter never stirred from their
though their barking waxed louder. And pondered on the same sort of league which we know doth exist in our parts between the great men of the country and the exiles of the woods." The English priest might have added that when he rose to watch the wolves of the Campagna
posts,
so
fighting the dogs of
Rome
in
the streets of the
Eternal City, he was observing in brief the history of feudal and ecclesiastical Europe.
Rome
at the
opening of the fourteenth century
The story of imagination. the false prophet calling himself Elias who came to Rome at that date baffles belief. It is told by
was corrupt beyond
somewhat ordinary affair. It therefore not altogether surprising that a man like Baldassarre Cossa should have attained the
of
as a
is
Adam
Usk
popedom, even though the appointment took place in pursuance of the reformatory measures of the Council of Pisa. What, however, does seem suris that the new prising, Pope, the nominee of the Council of Constance, should have treated with contempt the reformatory measures of the Council. John XXIII. had been deposed, Gregory XII. had agreed on terms to retire, and only the hardy and respectable Benedict XIII. stood out. Legal proceedings had been taken against him, and at the thirty-seventh session of the Council

he had been deposed, from their obedience.
old
41
and the
It
is
faithful
released
true
that
the brave
Pope Avignon stood out against the sentence till his death in 1423, but the Council having
of
done
birth.
all
that
was possible
to heal the Schism,
on
nth November One

of the
141 7 appointed a Roman Otto Colonna (Martin V.), as Pope.

first
of famous
of the
acts
of the
new head
Church, the leader of Roman society, was to recall Baldassarre Cossa to Rome, to rescue him from the tyranny of the secular arm, and give this putative
poisoner of Pope Alexander V. his proper place in the College of Cardinals. He received him, we are
with manifestations of honour and gratitude and made him the doyen of the Sacred College. Cossa
told,
was gratified by this tardy recognition of his merits and became the faithful subject of the Conciliar Pope, dying at last in the sulphurous odour of sanctity and amidst the benedictions of the Church which he had ruled. This was one fruit of the Council of Constance, a tangible proof that a party of moderate
with
reformers cannot afford to enter into compromises the fundamental evils of their time. The
Schism was not even ended. It was destined to become visible once more before the revival of
as the city of the Renaissance. Council of Constance touched the problems of the day from other points of view than that of its dis-
Rome
The
astrous settlement of the Great Schism of the West.

It dealt elaborately
with questions of discipline and
42
THOMAS A KEMPIS
questions of faith, and in the lengthy debates on these questions which were now stirring all Christendom, Gerson played a brilliant and The leading part. conservatism of his views was in remarkable contrast to the views of earlier But he had come to years.
the
conclusion
that
the
social
peace
of
Europe
depended upon the re-establishment of the Catholic faith and the Catholic He carried all discipline.
before
him.
"Politics at
that
Neville Figgis, writing upon the Council of Constance," ^ declares

. . .
Mr
he was "great indeed great in his fluence and his activity, greater perhaps in and devotion, greatest of all in the learning
session of a sense of humour, which leads
in-
his
posto
him
many arguments on account of his 'brevitatis " amor.' His sympathy must in many ways have been with John Hus, who appealed against his excommunication by Pope John XXHI. to the Council. " He was not prepared to submit unconditionally to
is
omit
the authority of the pope, for Christ, he contended, the real head of the Church, the pope only His
in
and His commands are supreme. mortal sin has no pope authority, is indeed Anti-Christ, and from Anti-Christ he was entitled
representative,
By what right have you deposed John XXHI., demanded the bold prisoner,
appeal
Christ.
if
to
to
the power of the Pope

'
is
absolute
.^''^
Such a
vol.
xiii.
Transactions
of the Royal Historical Society (1899),

vol.
i.
(N.S.)pp. 108-9.
2
Mackinnon's History of Modern Liberty,
pp. 160-1.

declaration
43
must have made Gerson wince.
He
of
could scarcely share his friend d'Ailly's high opinion the Pope. He was actually at the moment
engaged on his work dealing with the distinction between true and false visions, in which he lays stress upon the free and voluntary power of God. Yet Gerson could not afford, it was not expedient, to rank himself on the side of even such a mild heretic as Hus, and with all the learning of Paris he overwhelmed the noble Bohemian and was consenting unto his death. Yet not even the dire pressure of expediency and the dangerous gift of compelling eloquence could al-
together blind the eyes of the great Chancellor to the The forces of iniquity were dangers of his policy.
strongly represented at the Council of Constance. It was their business to destroy not only Wiclivism, not only Hussism, but all the purifying forces of
Christianity, and Gerson himself.
even conservative reformers
like
The dreamer
of dreams, the seer of

all
visions, the honest
sower of good seed, were
alike
abhorrent.
Christ Himself they would have persecuted as they persecuted those who followed Him.
This hatred of all that was good must have been the motive that inspired the attack upon the Brothers of Common Life, one of whom at that very
time was writing the purest devotional treatise, not Matthew Grabon led only of that, but of any age. He asserted that a community could the attack.
only be lawful
if
approved by the Holy See.
The
44
THOMAS A KEMPIS
whole matter was referred for Gerson's decision, and for once he resisted the temptations of expediency. He rejected the doctrine that such a Brotherhood
required the sanction of a Pope who was possibly, and in fact usually, immersed in mortal sin. The proposition touched the very ground of the convictions
that
had ruled
all his
earlier
life.
The
Brothers of
faith,
Common
Life held the
two chief doctrines of his
that purity of life and the education of children were the twin saviours of society. The work of the Brother-
hood as a purifying and teaching community was now famous through the West, and the attack was in itself an outrage. Gerson therefore upheld in this matter his position as an educationalist and a contemplative. In one other matter he faced the evil advisers
of the Council.
deliberately attacked the doctrines of Doctor Jean Petit, the member of his own
He
University who had attempted to justify the murder of the Duke of Orleans. Petit was now dead,
and though his views were formally condemned, the matter was carried no further. The Duke of was too formidable a person for even a Burgundy
From that moment, Gerson was a marked man. Despite all however, his diplomacy and eloquence, men recognised that his heart was with the movement of reform and that he was in spirit, if not in action, a member of the Such a man was abhorrent to Invisible Church. Burgundians and Vaticanists alike. There was no doubt as to the party he would follow if Christianity
General Council to attack.

in the in
45
Apostolic sense ever again became a power For the moment, however, he was Europe.
covered
by
the
safe
conduct
granted
to
the
Members of the Council, and up to the last shone At the fortyas the leader of the Assembly. on held fifth and last session April 22nd, 141 8,
Cardinal
Zabarella,
Archbishop
"
of
Florence,
ad-
dressed Gerson officially as Superexcellens Doctor Christianitatis," and thenceforth he was known to
Christendom as the Most Christian Doctor. From this almost theatrical blaze of glory, he stepped His attack on straightway into darkness and exile.
the Burgundians and probably his want of sympathy with the Roman cardinals had made his position not
only politically impossible but absolutely dangerous.
With
his
two
faithful
secretaries
he
fled,
on
the breaking up of the Council, from monastery to monastery, pursued by the fear of assassination.
In Bavaria he learnt that Paris had been ravaged Return was obviously by insurrection and massacre.
He eventually reached Rathembourg in impossible. the Tyrol, and from there he retired on the invitation
of the
Duke
of Moelck.
tions.
of Austria to the safe Benedictine abbey There he wrote his Theological Consola-
In 14 19 the rendered a return
ambition seems to
cellor's heart.
murder of the Duke of Burgundy But all to France possible. have passed from the great Chan-
returned, but not to throw himself into the passionate intrigues of Paris, or into the
whirl of events that followed the stricken field of
He
46
THOMAS A KEMPIS
Agincourt, when patriotism was made subservient to the conflicts of revolutionary parties and a typical
visionary of the fifteenth century, in the person of Jeanne d'Arc, became the saviour of society. The It had been too world no longer appealed to him.
had proved but Constance had been unprofitable. The evil spirit had been expelled from the Church, the Church itself had been swept and garnished. But the expelled spirit, now united with its spiritual leaders in corruption, had returned to Rome, and the last state of that Church was worse Well might Gerson put aside the than the first. world. It had rewarded him in its accustomed fashion. He had left France and his own people in almost regal He returned to France to throw himself in guise. his brother's arms and to declare that he was a mere He came to Lyons, suppliant for the mercy of God. to the monastery of the Celestines, of which his brother John was the first prior, and there he lived for four years, engaged in prayer and contemplation and in the writing of devout works. It has been suggested that he wrote The Imitation partly at the Abbey of Moelck and partly or mostly I can see no evidence to support this at Lyons. When at Moelck the bitterness of the review.
with him.
Its choicest fruits
much
dust and
ashes.
His triumphs
at
action after the glorious ending of the Council of
Constance was with
him,
and we know
in
fact
that his Consolations of Theology were written there and largely consisted of a reasoned attack on

his
47
This was dead, Jean Petit. not the the not the spirit of Imitation, atmosphere in which the Imitation could have been written.
old
enemy long
Men do
down
not beat dead dogs with one hand and write with the other the painful aspirations of the
It is true that when Gerson purified soul. settled in Lyons about the year 1420, his mental
had and
spiritual
view of
life
was
in
harmony with
the out-
But at look of parts at any rate of the Imitation. that date I have no doubt whatever that the Imita-
have elsewhere discussed the date of composition of the little treatises that form this work, and it seems to me impossible to suppose that they were completed later than the year 1420. If this is so, I think 14 10 is more nearly the date. have been the is clear that Gerson could not it It is moreover certain that the Imitation author. was complete in 1425, and it appears to me improbable in the highest degree that this elaborate and highly finished work was written between 1420 and
tion
was already
written.
with disappointment and sorrow and divorced by every consideration of human nature from the supreme structural arti-
1425 by a
man prematurely old,
filled
ficiality
of the Imitation.
It is
The work was
built
up
a complex mosaic, built in phrase by phrase. It is not such accordance with a definite scheme.
an outpouring of the human heart, fluent but brimming over with learned memories, as must have proceeded from the pen of Gerson, such an outpouring as did in fact more than once come from his pen.
48
THOMAS A KEMPIS
Moreover, not only
is
the date and spirit of com-
position against the theory that Gerson wrote the work, but the style itself has absolutely no point in
common
with Gerson's
style, the style
of a scholar,
the Latin philosophy of life.

Imitation, half-dozen
it
reminiscent at every turn of classical learning and Had Gerson written the
would have contained, not some poor

of
in
echoes
classical
thoughts,
but
classical
illustration
every paragraph.
is
Gerson's manner, but it author of the Imitation.
not the
That is manner of the
It is probable, however, Gerson's at his brother's monastery did that sojourn in some way affect the history of the authorship of this work. Copies of the Imitation were spreading
over Europe after the year 1420, and it is more than probable that a copy came to the Celestine monastery at Lyons and was in later years attributed to the prior. This seems the rational explanation
Gersen is certainly of the Aronensis manuscript. in the and is unreasonable there Gerson, something
attribution of this manuscript to an abbot created for So many early manuscripts were the purpose.
attributed to the Chancellor of Paris, that
it
seems un-
reasonable in the extreme to argue that, because the "o" has become an "e" another author has to be
found.
scripts
In fact two of the British
Museum manu-
have
this peculiarity in
an intensified form.
In one of these manuscripts the Chancellor is called " " Gersem." Other Gerseem," and in the other
imaginary claimants would have been created, no
;i;
.v'
Ivi
Ccaintmizr
noil
ambuLit"
c\c
cioTTiiri.
n
-
ût^r uctbAA-'
X'pi
i:ju.ib;
.O
mcnttrmur
teiauTiutetm.
einf'^ motreT
iiTLitternuvrii
ucHirrt uecori^
>
fcii
>^
tor ilLuniiTuv
.
111?
-/
omni
cecitiatc: a>2i:iM"itbar4.C(
Cic in
T>iiTnu
Kgrtf^
ituiiuiTn
nmrn
lUt^ y^w
-meditz-uu ."Doctxi
'rut eiui" csC datvixiAi" CuictoXL prcrcllit-- 't^îu (î
krituni
l-)Sxtr(3->
îhfcacLtum
ibi
mArta-tnucnicet. {3^
^liuiitu.
jottitmc-,
-mulci ec fvequcti
ejMii-Li^dxy
oa
llU^ clefMeriu^ fenttuiic- cj2 (jjtiritum

'O-u-i AUtt-tilt- otcnc-'i'Capvitr Vcvkj.
<êre-.
Tion 'Jiatct-,
5:pi
mteili
otiots^
-
X't-
totim
ixifctm
I
foT
'lU
^hxda>t con
ftiiTMrc
QuiJ p rocieft- nlji
Îta
de
irn i fatcj jiif
putvter
.
(l
carcar{7umilifrtte- untJc duplicdiirtvi
nitan. Vecer/oltiv ucclu..
non ^vidiintr {Tanctu

citrurri<:n fcv\:e
et"
uxfWn.f^ luetaao^ uiC-Aeffrat- ci<o

Trutgirfenurcr fjpunctioiie-
Opto
qiiU>-t-
etuTdiffinitiOTie.
Si fcu-eTtotum biWmm cr oou, tiicty. pt?av-
^*^'-'x5j
OU. ->
MS. IX 'IHK DKniSIl IMriATlOXI.: llKISll.

(
MUSEUM
THK
(l.ir,.
I.)
(HARL.
IS
.ilUi)
MS. is
dated
"21
OK TIIK DEC,
Kl-.AIISK
-ni
1151."
P.\R1
OI
CAP.
I.
IIERI':
RKI'ROIiUCKl).

doubt, to
that the
49
fit these names, had it not been for the fact word "Chancellor" in each follows. The " omission of the word " Chancellor in the Aronensis manuscript has led to one of the most inane
or
controversies, perhaps the most inane of mediaeval modern times. There can be no reasonable doubt
that every manuscript that bears a variant of the name Gerson was intended by the scribe to be attri-
buted to the great Chancellor of Paris.
That Gerson
work might possibly be adduced from the fact that in his De Laude Scriptoruvi he refers to the Canons Regular of Saint Augustine as
was
familiar with the
good copyists, by M. Masson

direction
if
couple it with the fact alleged that one of the most ancient manu-
we
scripts of the Imitation
was transcribed
by, or
by the
of the
of, Thomas de Gerson, a nephew In any Chancellor and a canon of Sainte Chapelle. event it is certain that if the work did come Gerson's
way he would have
with profound admiration, for its attitude of humility accorded with the mental and spiritual resignation of the broken statesman of read
it
Constance.
wrote his
It may well have been at this time that he De Meditatione Cordis repeatedly in after-
times treated as an integral part of the Imitation
and the fact that have associated
this
work was known
to
be his
may
In
his
name with
the Imitation.
any event Gerson, a voluminous author who did not love anonymity, and whose works written during the
ten
years of meditation
and
obscurity
were
for
the most part, at any rate, signed, never claimed the
50
authorship.
THOMAS A KEMPIS
The
apparently very early date of the Burney manuscript in the British Museum which bears his name no doubt offers some difficulty if
it
was
in fact
written before his death.
But the
as I have pointed out elsewhere, is not a very serious one, unless of course the origin of the There is no manuscript can be traced to Lyons.
difficulty,
vestige of a claim by Gerson to have written the
work.
Indeed his time seems to have been
filled
with other labours, and continual introspection. In 1423 he left the Celestine monastery took up educational work in connection with the church of St Paul at Lyons and still wrote on.
and
little
He
taught the children in the cloister beside the college of St Paul, and there they learnt also to pray for him in the pathetic words, " Mon Dieu, mon Createur, faites misericordes a votre pauvre serviteur Jean
Gerson."
Here Gerson wrote
his mystic
commen-
tary on the
of Songs. He finished it on and fell into an ecstatic July 9th, 1429, immediately trance from which he never came back to common His poor children were with him each day, reday. On peating for him the prayer he had taught them. 1 2th, world he from the 1429, July passed away " in which he had played so great a part. Notre his ended career Gerson" had pere Jean strange a mystic after all and not a politician. The spiritual aspirations and ideals that had inspired his earliest labours crowned his latest efforts. To instil into the education of youth the rapture of true religion was the
Song

solution that he offered
51
first and offered last for the woes of the world. Such a conception is perhaps a better title to fame than the fruitless victories of the Most Christian Doctor in the Council of Constance.
Education
future
in
is
is
the only
factor of progress,
little
the
it is
in the
hands of the
children,
and
our power to
make
these children what

princes
in all lands
we
will.
We
may make them
and give
them power to change the very aspect of society. This Gerson fully recognised and ceaselessly The poorest child was a child of God preached. and an inheritor of the kingdom of Heaven, and therefore it was as great an honour to teach him as Gerson absolutely realised to teach the Dauphin.
the relationship of education to the social problems He was in fact the first of his day and of all days. It educationalist in our modern sense of the term.
is
not possible fully to realise the age of Thomas a Kempis unless we obtain some conception of what education meant and whither it was drifting in that
period of blood and iron, and also some appreciation of the mysticism or quietism which at this time lay beneath much, if not all, of the religious revivals in
One particular combinavarious parts of Europe. tion of education and mysticism produced d'Ailly
and Gerson, another Gerard Groote, Florentius, and a Kempis, and another the English mystics, and yet another visionaries such as Catherino of Siena and Education, on the other hand, Bridget of Sweden. uncombined with mysticism or any other form of
52
THOMAS A KEMPIS
earnest religion, was responsible for the cold and not very striking intellectuality of the average
Paris doctor, the
men who
followed Jean Petit and
Education, justified the Burgundian reign of terror. moreover the mediaeval education of the mind
no way checked the unrestrained lawlessness and debauchery of the Papal Courts at Avignon and Rome. True education, then as now, comprised the training of the spiritual and moral as well as the
alone
in
purely
intellectual
faculties.
If
either
of
these
were left untrained, there was a form of education that produced some abnormality of nature varying from the calculated degradation of Cossa to
faculties
the ignorant but noble mysticism of Jeanne dArc. It will be convenient to glance somewhat rapidly
at the educational
system
in force
about the year
In education, as in everything else, the 1390. decline had begun and medisevalism was fighting in
strange, strenuous fashion against forces that it could In the neither understand nor adequately resist.
same way
as
that mediaeval
illustrated
in
armour
in
the fifteenth
the sepulchral brasses century both of England and the Continent steadily increased in weight and complexity with the addition
of grotesque devices for resisting the new mysterious gun, did the intellectual armour endeavour to meet
new
explosive ideas.
desperate effort was made to carry the old educational ideals, the old strict training in the
Trivium and the Quadrivium,
into battle against the

intellectual
53
moral and spiritual unrest of the world.

of
Europe, gathered together at Constance and elsewhere to do battle for old ideals, were cumbered by an intellectual armour that For a time it was robbed them of all real strength.
The
Doctors
by a continual increase of the outward strength of this armour to resist the new mysterious But the forces that were awakening in Europe. great century that saw the armour of the knight attain its most monstrous proportions, saw also its The same is true of the armour of disappearance. the Doctor. Knight and Doctor indeed vanished The gunpowder of the Reformation together. swept both away as the symbols of material and
possible
spiritual brigandage.
never be forgotten that the Roman It must Church performed a great work for education and culture during the Early and Middle Ages. Learning must inevitably have died after the decay and end of the Western Empire, had it not been for the efforts, first of the monasteries, and then of the popes and provincial councils. The names of the councils and popes who strove to keep alight the flickering
torch of learning
are
forgotten to-day.
Who
;
re-
members the Capitularc Aquisgranense^ of the year the 789 A.D., when the first Adrian was pope
Tkeodttlfi Capitulare (caps. 19 and 20) of the year 797, and the third canon of the Second Council of
Chalons-sur-Soane of the year 813, both

^
in
the days
Cap. 72 de schola.
54
of
THOMAS A KEMPIS
Leo
III.?
Who recalls the

pro
scholis reparandis at the Concilium

II.
thirty-fourth canon De studio literarum, promulgated
Romanum
of the year 826,
when
was pope, and who ever heard of the Eugenius Schola Ca7itorum of Pope Sergius II. ? The seventeenth canon of the Council of Turin, held in the year 858, when the first Nicholas was pope, possibly
only interests the antiquarian mind, while the reference to education in the same year at the Synodus Carisiaca (cap. 12) is probably too obscure for any
notice,
et
and the tenth
Q.2.VLOX\{de
scholis sacraescripturae,
kuinanae literaturaei7istituendis) of the year 859 at the Council of Tullens is perhaps as dead as the rest.
These and other instances of the scholastic activity of the Holy See and the bishops of the Church when all the world of thought and light seemed dead
are,
however, important as proving that in the dark eighth and ninth centuries there was a force in the world drawing men on to some far dawn.
Indeed the scholastic legislation of the Church

sj
in the ninth
century is directly responsible for the educational organisation of the twelfth century. It is customary to attribute to the combined effects of
the decrees of Third and Fourth Councils of Lateran
the establishment
^
diocesan
system
throughout Christendom of a of The Concilium schools.
826, however, in its thirty-fourth canon, " created this system. The canon runs are really
:
Romanum of
^
We
Third Council of Lateran (cap.
i8),
1179 A.D.
Fourth Council of
Lateran, 12 15 A.D.

informed that
in certain places there are to
55
be found
letters.
neither teachers nor
provision for the
study of
and among subject peoples the and other places wherein necessity arises, let all care and diligence be exercised in the appointment
Therefore
in all bishoprics
of such masters and teachers as shall have at heart
and
diligently teach the study of letters and of the For in these liberal arts and the sacred doctrines.
things are the divine fested and declared."
commands most clearly maniThe Fourth Council of Lateran
was but carrying
when
it
this express provision into effect declared, in 12 15, that "in every cathedral
or other
church of sufficient power the Dean or Chapter must appoint a schoolmaster to whom the In a revenue of a prebend should be given.
metropolitan
church
theologian
must
also
be
And if the church cannot support both appointed. a grammarian and a theologian, it must provide for
a theologian out of
provision
is
its
own revenues and
see that
grammarian in one of the These provisions of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were but a
for the
made
its
churches of
state or diocese."
re-statement of a recognised position made with the view of encouraging and indeed of enforcing the
higher clergy to carry out their educational duties. In the larger cities throughout Europe, however,
the diocesan system of education was and had long It is more than probable that one of been in force.
the earliest permanent officials of a cathedral was the Magister Scolaricm, and that this official eventu-
56
ally
THOMAS A KEMPIS
became through the importance of
his position
the chancellor of the diocese.
Mr
A. F. Leach,
of
first
dealing with
the
fact
that
the
chancellorship
Southwell Minster was annexed to one of the
and most ancient prebends Normanton tells us " fact which suggests that here, as that this is a at York and Waltham, the Magister Scolarum was All collegiate churches and the earliest dignitary. cathedrals were bound to keep schools and the of the school was teaching grammar regarded in early days as an even more important part of the duties of the official, who afterwards was known as the chancellor, than his legal and clerkly business. It
;
indeed only through his scholastic functions that, at Southwell, we learn there was a chancellor at all, though when he appears in written evidence he no
is
longer teaches school himself, but only sees that This he does not only in Southwell others do so.
Grammar School
itself,
but throughout the county
mother church. So the schools of the University of Oxford were, at first, under the superintendence of the Chancellor of Lincoln, as chancellor of the mother church of the diocese."^ The diocese of Worcester gives us evidence as to the Magister Scolarum in that county,- while
get a particularly valuable instance of the powers of this official in the case of the diocese of London.
^
of which Southwell was the
we
Visitations
xli.
and Memorials of Southwell Minster, Camden

ex.,
Society,
1891, p.
2
Register of Worcester Priory, pp.
130 b,
Camden
Society, 1865.

As am
this is
57
apparent
it
deaHng,
is
in the very period with which I desirable to refer to it somewhat
fully.
Dugdale,
in his
History of St PaiWs Cathedral,^
tells
us that a charter of Richard, Bishop of London, " in the time of King Henry I., granted to one Hugh,
the schoolmaster, and his successors in that employment, the habitation of Durandus at the corner of
the turret {id est the Clochier or Bell Tower), where William the Dean of Paul's had placed him by his the
said
Bishop's
command.
To which Hugh
Henry, a canon of the same had been educated under the said which Henry had such great respect in Hugh those days that Henry de Bloys, that famous Bishop of Winchester (who was nephew to the King), commanded that none should presume to teach school within the whole city of London, without his licence, excepting the schoolmasters of Saint Mary Bow, and
succeeded
in that place
Bishop's, that
. . .
Newcourt, in his History of the Diocese of Lojidon,^ adds a little to this informale
St Martin's
Grand."
us
tion.
He
"
tells
that
Henry
the Chancellor of
was that Henry for whom Henry de Blois was Bishop of Winchester from 1129 to 1171 (who and nephew to the King) had such great respect, that by virtue of his legatine power he commanded the chapter of St Paul's and William the Archdeacon, and their ministers, by virtue of their obedience, that
Paul's
after three times calling, they
^
should pronounce the

:
Edition 1658, pp. 8-9. Edition 1708-9, p. 109
see
Round
Commune,
p. 117.
58
THOMAS A KEMPIS
sentence of anathema against all those who without licence of Henry, the Master of the Schools, should
presume
to teach within the
whole
le
city of
London,
except those
who were
masters of the schools of St
Grand." The school further endowed by Richard Nigel in the time of Richard I. I think, however, we must date the origin of the school earlier than the beginning of the
Mary
le
Bow and
St Martin
was
twelfth century, for the educational canons of 826
promulgated by Pope Eugenius H. must have applied to an important cathedral church such as St Paul's, especially when we consider the fact that
A.D.
an educational revival on a large scale and must have been familiar

initiated
King Alfred is known to have
with the specific educational provision of the English Provincial Council of Cloves-hoo and the Council of
Rome
became
in
school of Paul's, however, a national factor under the patronage of
826.^
The
Henry
of Blois soon after the
Norman
occupation
of England.
During
his occupation of the see of
Winchester, Henry of Blois was an important social force in England. contemporary writer,- under the date 1171, tells us: "Henry, Bishop of Winchester, than whom never was man more chaste
or prudent,
'
more compassionate, or more earnest

Canon
vii.,
in
transacting ecclesiastical matters, or in beautifying

Conciliujn Cloveskoviense,
i.
A.D. 747 (Wilkin's Concilia,
vol.
pp. 95-6, London, 1737). See Annals of ike Church of Winchester from the year ^^}) A.D. to the year 1277, by a tnonk of Winchester, translated by Rev. J. Stevenson
vol. iv. part
i.,
{Church Historiatis of Englafid,
1870).

churches,
59
his
departed to the Lord,
whom
with
whole heart he had loved, and whose ministers, the monks and all other religious, he had honoured as
the Lord Himself.
repose in the bosom of Abraham." To the noble prelate, Alexander IIL, a great educational pope, wrote sometime after 1 159 "In future be more careful to see that nothing be
May his soul
demanded
anyone.
or even promised for the licence to teach If hereafter anything is either paid or
promised, take care that the promise is remitted and payment restored, such charge being null and void
knowing what
freely give.'
is
written
if
'
freely thou hast received,
Indeed
delay
anyone by reason of such a

institution of masters in
fit
prohibition
the
places, you may, by our permission, disregarding all gainsaying or appeals, appoint in such places for
the instruction of the people, prudent, honest, and discreet men." ^ may be sure that the bishop
We
who had done

all
so
much
for
education in
London did
that
was possible
policy.
We
know
to carry out this truly national that even the reign of Stephen
did
not altogether check educational work,^ and thirty years after the death of Henry of Blois the
Council of Westminster ordained, "let nothing be exacted for licences to priests to perform divine
offices,
or for licences to schoolmasters.

let
it
If
it
have
not
been paid,
^
be restored."
Alexander
III. did
Corpus Juris Canonici, par. 2, col. 768 (Editio Lipsiensis secunda post A.L. Richteri, 1879-81). ' See Saru7n Charters and Documetits, Rolls Edition, p. 8.
^
Johnson's
Laws and Canons^
vol.
ii.
p.
89.
60
THOMAS A KEMPIS
In 1 1 70 it England. with especially provided respect to the Galilean Church: "prolicentiadocendi pecuniaexiginon debet, etiam si hoc habeat consuetudo " ^ and this provision was confirmed for the whole of Europe by the Third
restrict his educational efforts to
was
Lateran Council in 11 79. From the middle of the twelfth to the middle of the thirteenth century, Rome indeed was doing all that was possible to secure the and her spread of education
efforts
throughout Europe, were admirably seconded in many cases, despite
the disorders of the times, by great ecclesiastics like the Bishop of Winchester, and by a devoted clergy. The corruption of Rome in the fourteenth did
century
not undo her noble earlier work.

great
We
find that the
London
school for which

for the year
1
done so much had
Henry of Blois had 190 become an educa-
and as in the two succeeding centuries the supremacy was maintained and the curriculum practically unchanged
save for the increasing application of Aristotelian scholasticism I may quote William Fitzstephen s
description of the curriculum,'- as rendered by Stow. " Upon the Holydayes, assemblies flocke together about the Church, where the Master hath his abode.
tional centre of the greatest importance,
There the Schollers dispute some use demonstrations, others topicall and probable arguments, some
;
practise
^
Enthimems, others are better
at
perfect
Corpus Juris Canottici^ par. ii. col. 769. See State Interve?ition in English Education, by the present writer (Cambridge University Press, 1902), p. 43.
-

:
61
some for a shew dispute, and for Syllogismes exercisinof o themselves, and strive Hke adversaries Others for truth, which is the grace of perfection.
:
dissembling Sophisters turne Verbalists, and some are magnified when they overflow in speech
The
Sometime also are intrapt with deceitfull arguments. certaine Oratours, with Rhetoricall Orations, speake
handsomly
perswade, being carefull to obscure the no matters contingent. precepts of Art, who omit The Boyes of divers Schooles wrangle together in of Grammar, versifying, and canvase the principles as the rules of the Preterperfect and Future Tenses.
to
an old custome of prating, use Rimes and Epigrams these can freely quip their fellowes, suppressing their names with a festinine and railing these cast out most abusive jests, and with liberty
Some
after
vices
Socraticall witnesses either they give a touch at the of Superiours, or fall upon them with a
Satyricall
bitternesse.
The
hearers
prepare for
in the
laughter, and make themselves merry
meane
time."
end of the twelfth century was in the way to become, as Paris was becoming, one The sudden of the great Universities of Europe. development of Oxford and Cambridge checked
London
at the
the expansion of the ancient London school into a famous university, but the school itself remained
and
and was a type of the cathedral schools scattered all over Europe, some of which became universities in answer to some peculiar
efficient,
62
THOMAS A KEMPIS
two
centuries,
geographical or social
for
demand, but all of which from the end of the twelfth
century, remained centres of learning, sending forth travelling teachers possessing the licence to teach
and actually teaching in the parochial schools of Europe the schools, the reading schools, the reading and writing schools and in the important song and grammar schools that led directly to the universities, and possessing the curriculum the very advanced curriculum indicated by
ABC
The Church, despite the terrible Fitzstephen. growth of ecclesiastical corruption in the fourteenth
and
fifteenth centuries, kept a firm hold upon the schools. see this in all parts of Europe. At
We
Beverley, at the opening of the fourteenth century, the independent schoolmaster is crushed out of
existence.^
At Dundee
Glasgow at same thing happens.^

In 1364
at the beginning, and at the end, of the fifteenth century, the
we have
at
Geneva an appeal
to
the
Avignon, canon of the chantry of St Peter, who was the Magister Scolarum of the city, had put up
titular
Pope
at
informing his Holiness that the
and diocesan and as no purchaser had been found, "quod scole ipse quasi ad nichilum sunt redacte."^ The ordered the canonical on the Pope provisions subject
for sale the right to control the city
schools,
Memorials of Beverley Minster, edited by A. F. Leach (Surtees
Society, 1897), pp. lix.-lxv. State Intervention in Efiglish Education, p. 113.

^
UAcadanie de Calvin, par Charles Borgeaud, Geneve,
1900, p. 6.

to
63
be enforced.
The
dispute between educational
had, however, temporarily destroyed a The schools in this case, flourishing- local system. as in many other cases from about this time forauthorities
ward, were taken over by the municipal authorities. In London in 1393-4 we find the Magister Scolarum and the ecclesiastical authorities which
controlled schools situated in Peculiars
London a desperate controversy. courts so powerand the ecclesiastical important, less, that the Church could not retain its control
engaged in was then so
without the aid of the secular arm, and in consequence we have a petition to the Crown from the
Archbishop of Canterbury, the Dean of the Free Chapel of St Martin le Grand, and the Chancellor of the church of St Paul's, relating a strange tale.
The
that by the laws spiritual, immemorial and custom, the ordinance, the disof certain position, and examination of the masters
petitioners declared
schools of the faculty of Grammar within the city of London, and the suburbs of the same, belonged
to them, but that nevertheless strange unqualified
masters
of
in
grammar
the
said
held
city,
grammar
of the
general to the
schools
deceit
in
and
illusion of the children,
King's lieges, The masters of the official schools Church. Holy of St Paul's, the Arches, and St Martin's had
and to the great prejudice and of the jurisdiction of
pursued their right against the intruders

^
in
the
State Intervetttion hi English Education^
P- 4i-
64
THOMAS A KEMPIS
in in
Court Christian, and the intruders

proceedings
ecclesiastical
the
secular
court
to
reply began secure a
declaration of their right to teach

licence.
in
grammar without
of
It
The
bold
breath
the
Reforde-
mation was
the
demand.
was a
liberate attack in one of the greatest centres of Christendom on the immemorial claim of a Church
notoriously corrupt to control all and every form of education. The significant fact is that the
now
attack was successful.
The
petition
remained un-
answered, and seventeen years later the English courts declared in the Gloucester Grammar School Case^ that there was by the common law of the
land, apart
from prescriptive rights

"
:
in
is
particular
cases, a perfect right to teach
It
a virtuous
and charitable thing to do, helpful to the people, for which he cannot be punished by our law." This was in the year 1410, a date when new educational ideas were in the air, when the Brothers of Common Life had given their new conceptions of teaching to the world, when Gerson was proclaiming to Europe that education and the inner life alone could save society, when a Kempis was
penning
of
his
immortal claim for the free intercourse
man
with God, and the spiritual
following of Christ. the great mediaeval educational system had beo-un, but the whole of its vast machinery was
the
of
The
necessity for decay, the failure
open
to the
1
new
ideas,
ii,
and they flowed

Henry
IV., p. 47,
in.
21.
The
Year Book, anno
Case

University
associated
for for
65
corporations of masters and scholars this or that scholastic discipline, the

liberal
arts,
the
study of
or
of
theology,
medicine, law, the new unrest that ran before the
was gradually permeated with
new
learning.
In Paris, with its faculties of arts, theology, and canon law the very home of that study of Aristotle which from the end of the twelfth century had
and philosophy for the ancient Ouadrivium Gerson thundered forth the needs of the inner and the outer life. The life of Oxford was Wiclivism at this date, and the revival of Church authority as shown in Archbishop Arundel's ConIn so far as stitutions of 1408 was short-lived. the University was under the control of the Church, it slowly died during the fifteenth century, and the
substituted dialectic
University of Paris about the middle of the century refused even to recoo-nise Oxford as a seat of o
Lollardism alone kept the flame of learning. culture alive and made Oxford fit to receive the
The learning at the end of the century. mediaeval system of education was in process
new
of dissolution at the date
when
the Imitation
first
appeared,
and the question for the world was whether the old machinery could be adapted to
new
of
tion
in
new methods of thought, new spheres The revolulearning, new manners of life.
needs,
in
religion
that
accompanied the revolution

possible. rapidly fitted to the
this
thought
alone
rendered
The
new
machinery of society was
66
THOMAS A KEMPIS
ideas, and for this we have in some large measure to thank the practical work of mystical thinkers who did all that was possible to soften the rudeness
of revolution, and to make the hearts of men move with their minds. The Imitation was, indeed, un-
consciously enough, a representative of a force that rendered possible the transition from mediaeval to
modern manners without a disastrous loss of power, and without a revolution that could only recreate by That force was the Christian virtue of destruction. mysticism which then as now lay beneath the
varying living forms of Christian profession.
In
England
the
influence
of
mysticism
to
was
peculiarly apparent.
England gave
both
the world
extraordinary developments
of scholasticism
first
and mysticism.
enunciated
the
It
was Anselm who

of
definitely
in
its
principal
scholasticism
Had it application to the interpretation of scripture. not been for his work, Petrus Lombardus could never
have created that logical structure which comprised the whole dogma of the mediaeval Church. These men were realists and believed in the reality of general ideas, and therefore in a sense made logically Their possible the later extreme mystical position. great descendants Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas were for this reason no opponents of the
If general conceptions represented mystic position. real facts in nature, the general conceptions of the
The two Victorines Hugo of mystic were real. St Victor, a Saxon, and Richard of St Victor, a

Scotsman
their mystic
logic.
67
had already realised this and evolved doctrine by the means of scholastic Richard definitely built up a philosophical
intuitive
fact
dis-
theory of contemplation as an
tinguishable from cogitation (the ordinary power of reason) and meditation (the power of reflection upon
a single subject).
Another man closely connected

carried
its
with
England,
Bonaventura,
life
the
mystic
doctrine into daily

plication.
and showed
practical ap-
At
this stage, the mid-thirteenth century,
the theory of religion was pardy controlled by the Aristotelian logic and pardy by the new trans-
cendental logic of the mystics. One force or other certain sooner or later to dominate was, however, the religious world. The decision came in the
fourteenth
Another Englishman, Duns century. Scotus, gave the final development to scholasticism. He carried it beyond the bounds marked out
Albert and Aquinas.
by
He
forced
it
to
its
ultimate
and
logical conclusions,
its
appreciation of
justified essential unreality.
and
Roger Bacon's
final
When Duns
an
it
Scotus died in 1307, the
stage
It
of mediaeval scholasticism
intellectual
was
in its prime.
was
but
triumph
to
of the highest order,
have any relationship to life or religion. Throughout and beyond the fourteenth it was magnified as an intellectual century, but it had ceased to have any meanino- in weapon, the life of the people. Realism vanished from the scholastic philosophy, and with realism the relation-
had ceased
68
THOMAS A KEMPIS
Paris became ship of mysticism and scholasticism. the school of the nominalists, and formal theology
was
by nominalism. Universals, she taught, were mere words, mere figments of the
controlled
From that time the official faith of imagination. the Church became hard and materialistic, and the
mystics alone represented the Invisible Church and alone carried on the Platonic conceptions of Saint It was in England that the mystic Augustine.
From early height. exhibited a vigorous Christianity that depended but little on the dictates Even when Rome, in the reign of Henry of Rome.
movement was carried to its Norman times England had
III., possessed her maximun of power in England, the spiritual movements of the time seem to have The monastic life from the developed quite freely.
time of Stephen appeared to offer singular attractions

to
English
men and women, and
in
the twelfth
century we get a curious mystic development, not so much among the thinkers, as among the people. The monastic discipline was not enough. An extraThe ordinary desire for the eremitical life arose.
hermit was regarded as a person of peculiar and A desire to experience the fullest enviable sanctity. sweetness of religious contemplation became wideMen and women of all classes wished to spread.
live the mystic
life.
Mr Horstman
tells
us that " the
chief conquests of the English mystics lay on the
side of practical, moral,
gradually
they
even
and popular theology, and more than Bonaventura

absorbed
the
69
They reHgion, the of the the Godward, perfection, way way taught undertook time same at the and they ruHng of Hfe the edification and instruction of the people, of the
sphere
of
;
whole
poor and
faith,
taught them the elements of the the commandments, the sacraments, etc., and
illiterate,
;
took hold of the pulpit

priests
how and
in
what
or they instructed the parish to teach the people, how to
use the sacraments,

festivals,
etc.,
and made model sermons,
The sermon, legendaries, for their use. the homily, the epistle, the religious tract became
the mouthpiece of the mystics."
It is in this
^
unprinted
origin
of
of which a vast mystical movement that we find the literature survives
Lollardism
It
is
and of the Reformation

this
in
England.
in
movement
that
we
find
the leaders in their efforts to reach the people turnLatin to the vernacular in England, ingr from
Germany, and (later) France. Gerson, as we have seen, at the end of the fourteenth century wrote for
a Kempis in at least the people in the vernacular one tract did the same but a century earlier, David of Augsberg (who died in 1272) and Meister Eckhart
;
;
wrote
in
German, and
in
the
first
half of
the
fourteenth century Richard Rolle of Hampole, the great English mystic, wrote many of his tracts in the
Some mention must be made of English tongue. Richard Rolle de Ampulla, for it would be difficult influence that he to over-estimate the indirect
^
Richard Rolle of Ha7?tpole, by C. Horstman,
vol.
i.
p. xii.
70
THOMAS A KEMPIS
exercised over the development of religion in Europe. He was born about the year 1300 at Thornton, near
He Pickering, in the North Riding of Yorkshire. His died on September 29th, 1349, at Hampole. life was an extraordinary exhibition of what appears
to the ordinary mind as perverted holiness. was sent to Oxford, and there he met scholasticism
in its latest, its
He
most brilliant, and its most arid stage of It filled him with horror, and after a development. brief sojourn at the University he fled at the age of nineteen. He returned home and, at an age when the pleasures of life seem most vivid, he de-
become a hermit. He found a patron who supplied him with a cell and the necessaries of life. He set to work to realise in his own person the
cided to
mystic
that he
ideal.
He
passed
through the stage of

to declare
Purification, or Purgation,
and was able
had reached that point of purification when even remorse is washed away. From that stage he passed to the second, the stage of Illumination, where the mind is kindled to the perfect love of God. Two years and eight months were spent in the exhausting exercises that could produce this subjective Then the hermit passed into his final stage, state. " sees into heaven, that of Contemplation, where man In this with his ghostly eye." extraordinary state
he lay absorbed
Calor
for a year, until
he attained
to the
final goal of this type of mystic.
acquired the the inward spiritual warmth, almost indis-
He
tinguishable, he tells us,/rom physical
warmth
and
4
\
^-^
i.<*\
,rr
:'
&
ki
liii-rt?' .t.
^^'fii<n'>t
1
(]:!ii(l.i:U!)
II.,
KI( llAkI)
TON
I)K. C.
MS.
ROM. or FAUSTINA
I',
[lAMl'Ol.K
I;.
FROM COTI'OI,.
II.,
I'ART
IMi;
HRITISH .MUSKU.M).
If IS DII-KICl r
HOK.ST.MAN CONSIDER.S THIS .\ CONTEMl'OKANV I'OJMK.AIT, ISUT TO DATE THE MS. EAKI.IER THA.N 1400. IT MAV WEI. I. I!E A Cr)I'V OF A CONTEMI'OHAKY EKKIGIES
71
nine months later this was followed by the Canor an all-pervading melody of uncloyable sweetness.
These experiences were accompanied by the Dtilcor a sense of spiritual happiness ineffable and divine. A period of four years and three months had given
to
Henceforth, he declared, they remained with him in various forms of intensity. He laid claim to saintship as a being wholly absorbed in the love of God, and he asserted that
Rolle these
results.
the gift of Canor
that spiritual music, that invisible melody, celestial sound, the greatest gift of God to men brought him within the select class of the one
or two
"
privilegiati."
is
What
ous.
It
one to think of
it
all
this?
It
is
cer-
tainly repellent,
is
still
more
road
shows
all
us
the
certainly dangerthat to most
horrible of
heresies
Perfectionism
and
it
estaball
it
lishes, I think, the reactionary character of But nevertheless cessive religious emotion.
exis
fact that
has to be considered, very seriously to be considered, in an age that promises to become as It must be as the fourteenth century.
mystical
remembered
alone.
that
Richard
Rolle
did
not
It
stand
Some
mystics went even further.
was
claimed that Saint Bernard actually saw God face have to realise that there is in human to face.
We
nature
this
become
still
^
the desire to extraordinary quality unclothed of human characteristics while

:
in the flesh,
and
to take part in a life

vol.
ii.
which
is
in
See Richard Rolle of Hattipole^
(Introduction/rt^îw).
72
truth
THOMAS A KEMPIS
pure
mentality.
Rolle
deavoured
to realise in his
own
endeliberately person the transcen-
dentalism of Richard of St Victor, and he claimed success. But the important point about this extraordinary mystic, for my present purpose, is his career after he attained the summit of subjective holiness.
returned to the world and became a wandering Here the preacher, and at last took up his pen.
practical North Country Englishman came to light. His treatises were treatises for the people treatises
;
He
of the practical mystic life treatises of well-living and well-doing, not untouched with the spirit of
;
social revolt that
was
to
become a
the
political factor in
his
spiritual
descendants
filled
russet
grey who
It is
the preaching friars in countrysides with
Lollardism.
not a monk.
He was
life
a curious story. a layman
This man was who determined
and inculcate it by word and his work, he settled down, done example. Having at the age of forty, at Hampole, as the spiritual adviser of a community of nuns, and there nearly ten years later he died, probably of the plague, which was then raging in England. Wiclif was then twentyto live the mystic
Even a cursory examination of years of age. Rolle's Latin writings show a remarkable unity of ideas between him and the author of the Imiiation.
five
His description of love and the true lover

identical
is
almost
with
the
wonderful
fifth
book of Internal Consolations. whom I have written in another chapter, was a
chapter of the Walter Hilton, of

follower of
Rolle,
73
are
and certainly
those
who
tempted to think that Hilton wrote the Imitation will find a measure of support in the influence It that Rolle undoubtedly exercised over Hilton.
might well be contended that only one intimately acquainted with Rolle's writing could have written The answer to such a certain parts of the Imitation. contention is that the English and Flemish mystics had a common ground of thought and faith. When we turn from England to Germany and the Low Countries, we find that mysticism had there,
as in
England, become a great though intangible Mechthild of Magdeburg, force. "prophetess, had stated the Church reformer, quietist,"^ poetess,
mystical case and its relation to social before the birth of Meister Eckhardt
problems
in
1260.
This famous Dominican became Vicar-General for Bohemia in 1307, and from that date was engaged in
preaching his transcendental doctrine of the Godhead, "the universal and eternal Unity comprehend-
ing and transcending all diversity." A Neo-platonist, he gave a new currency to Plotinian conceptions,
and though his doctrines were officially condemned in 1329, and he himself forgotten, his realistic conception of God had become part of the mystic creed. As Mr Inge points out, his philosophy "does not
keep
unreal
clear of the fallacy that can lead to reality."
an ascent through the But nevertheless he
brought home to
*
Lights
innumerable congregations the Life and Love, by W. R. Inge, p. xi.
74
reality of
THOMAS A KEMPIS
as an object of mystic contemplation. successor was John Tauler, born about the same
God
His
a
year, 1300, as Richard Rolle.
1361, after life of parochial work. To mystics of this type "everything, every event, every person, is a vision from the Unseen, a voice from the Inaudible. He lives
in a
He died in
world of parables,
for
it
full
is
of spiritual significance
and while
him there
also
a Real Presence every-
where, he finds
most truly and effectively where it is most clearly discerned by faith. In God's dealings with man from first to last he
.
.
perceives a harmony that implies a foreshadowing of the last in the first, of the whole in the part and in this way he can find an interpretation of spiritual
;
value even in the thoughts of good men, who have pictured to themselves, inaccurately, it may be, as to matters of fact, God's earlier work in the creation
of the world and of man."
ally
^
Tauler dwells continu-
on the oneness of man
and
God.
"
The
soul
in
is so nobly united to God, and, at first, such a supernatural way, that man might justly shun, like death, every thought that could interfere
with this union.
The
thought, which
is
to receive
God
into
itself,
can endure nothing strange.

Paul). into a practical mysticism
fore desire only invisible
(Sermon on St
hardt
'
There" and inexpressible things The Plotinianism of Eck-
is
made
by Tauler.
See The Inner Way, being thirty-six sermons for festivals by fohn Tauler^ with an invaluable introduction by the Rev. A. W. Hulton
(p. xxxiii.).

God
is
75
not the only reality.

that
Man
is
also a reality,
but one
desires
to
merge
into
God.
With
we
Tauler we ascend through reality to reality. When pass from John Tauler to Henry Suso (12951365), we meet a mystic more of the type of Richard
Rolle
but possibly less spiritual and more sensuous and even more neurotic than was Rolle. He had
something of the same influence over a Kempis that Rolle had over Hilton. John of Ruysbroek is even of more [Doctor Ecstatictis) importance in considering the spiritual heritage of
Thomas
a Kempis.
He was
in
a Fleming, born in 1293 at Ruysbroek, near Brussels. He founded the Abbey of Groenendael
the forest of Soignies, where he died in 1381, At shortly after the birth of Thomas a Kempis.
Groenendael he was visited both by Henry Suso and Gerard Groote. These visits may be said
definitely
of the
to connect a Kempis with the schools German and Flemish mystics. Ruysbroek's
work has been

in
his learned
1899.^
treatises,
R. Inge Lectures for Bampton In his abbey "he wrote most of his mystical
carefully analysed
by
Mr W.
and
brilliant
under the direct guidance, he believed, of

Spirit."
the
Holy
a clear thinker.
He "was not a learned man or He knew Dionysius, St Augustine,

;
and Eckhardt, and was no doubt acquainted with some of the other mystical writers but he does not
write
like
scholar
or
man
of letters.
He
less
resembles Suso
^
in being-
more emotional and

p. 167.
Christian Mysticism,
76
THOMAS A KEMPIS
He speculative than most of the German school." He conelaborated the order of mystical evolution.
ceived a " Ladder of Love," the rungs of which were
"
(3) chastity (2) voluntary poverty (4) humility; (5) desire for the glory of God; (6)
(i)
;
good
will
Divine contemplation, which has three properties

intuition, purity of spirit, and nudity of mind (7) the ineffable, unnameable transcendence of all know;
ledge and thought."

analysis in his
Still more elaborate Ordo Spiritualmm Niiptiaritm.

life {vita
life,
is
his
"The
three stages are here the active internal, elevated, or affective
actuosa), the
to
not called, and the contemplative life, He held with Rolle that there a few can attain."
vêre. privilegiati, and his analysis of life is not unlike But his that which Rolle endeavoured to realise.
which all are to which only
more philosophic " What we are, that we intently contemplate and what we contemplate, that we are for our mind, our life, and our essence are simply lifted up and united to the very truth, which is God. Wherefore in this simple and intent contemplation we are one life and one spirit with God. And this I call the contemplative life. In
final position is
:
this highest stage the soul is united to
God
without
means
into
head."
GodHere we have Eckhardt and Tauler mingled one but Rolle and Suso add some softeningr
;
it
sinks into the vast darkness of the
touches to this cold philosophic ending to the soul's " must be conscious of ourspiritual journey.
We
selves in God, and conscious of ourselves in ourselves.
77
For eternal life consists in the knowledge of God, and there can be no knowledge without self-consciousness," It was, we must believe, some such thought
that drove Richard Rolle back to the world ere he
reached the
templation.
Ruysbroekian consummation of con-
of Ruysbroek we pass to a figure who was destined to give a new and practical impulse to mysticism, and to create the means whereby the
From John
hnitatioyi
was
g-iven to the world.
was a contemporary of Wiclif, An unlike Hus, he originated no political changes. itinerant preacher, as Wiclif was, he nevertheless made no appeal, direct or indirect, to the spirit of social reform that then was stirring in the hearts of men. A spiritual descendant of the German and Flemish mystics, he went about preaching the doctrine of the inner life. The life story of Gerard Groote is a strange one, and it throws a vivid light on an important aspect of society in the days when the tide of time was turninof from its ebb in the direction of the
Gerard Groote but unlike Wiclif and
Reformation,
Groote was born at Deventer in the year 1340. Educated at the g^rammar school of that town and later at Aix-la-Chapelle and Cologne, he passed with
a sound reputation to the University of Paris, where he drank deep of the well of scholastic learning and
became a profound theologian and a nominalist of

the recognised type. years before Gerson
He
left
came
Paris perhaps twenty to give the University
78
THOMAS A KEMPIS
Groote was a man of wealth, and learning, and was able to select his
leading.
new light and

position, own career.
He
chose, after
some experience
of
teaching and lecturing at the University of Cologne, that ecclesiastical career which was open to laymen.
The
choice appears to have been the result of a visit paid to the papal court at Avignon in the year 1 366. That city must in many ways have impressed the
mind of a man whose great
gifts
enabled him to see
below the surface of things. St Bridget of Sweden in that very year was urging Urban V. to return to
Rome.
that
it
Rumours
of the
new
mysticism, fear of
all
might mean, filled the papal court. There can be no doubt that at the very time when Groote was in Rome the mystic shadow lay on the soul of
was to drive him to Rome and was to brood over and succeeding year, haunt his death-bed. Gerard Groote had his first
Urban
the
shadow
that
in the
acquaintance with mysticism in the strange palaces His immediate reward was scarcely of a dead faith. On his return to Deventer he found spiritual.
various benefices to his hand, as well as the canonries In his new career of Utrecht and Aix-la-Chapelle.
of cultured and learned leisure, enjoying the present hour as his wealth and inclination dictated, and waiting for the further preferment that his gifts
he led a
life
and
his position
were certain
to secure.
The
turmoil
of Europe, the struggle for temporal and spiritual power, meant as little to him as it meant to the
average church dignitary of the eighteenth century.

He
him
was a man who had great possessions
proved,
intellectual, and, as the sequel
spiritual.
79
material,
To
in due time, as to his prototype in the Scriptures, the call came, and, unlike that friend of Christ, he was not found wanting. From time to time he had
been stirred by vague
calls to
life.
He
had heard
them
and in the daily life But they came from other sources An unknown hermit came to him one day in also. the public street did it recall the mystic rumours and cried, " Another man thou oughtest of Avignon to become." Later in sore sickness he abjured his Parisian studies in astrology and magic. At last in
in the cathedral services
of the church.
374 the final
call
came, bringing inherited traditions of
piety to light. university friend, now a Carthusian him called at Utrecht and prior, upon eloquently bade
him take up the following of

little
Christ.
There was
hesitation.
germinated.
seed of mysticism suddenly Without hesitation or regret he re-
The
nounced
his benefices, his canonries, his ecclesiastical
ambitions, and took holy orders as a deacon. Such were the contrasts of the fourteenth century
to
was to end the ambition of the Churchman. For five years he trained his heart. He visited the monastery of the Augustinian Canons
take orders
at Viridis Vallis
;
Ruysbroek Under the influence of the ascetic Monichuysen, life and of the mind of Saint Augustine he returned to the world in 1379, intent on its conversion. He
with John of he entered the Carthusian House at

;
he
communed deeply
80
THOMAS A KEMPIS
itinerant preacher, and travelling on foot from place to place, might have been taken in his coarse grey robe for one of Wiclif's friars, who at
became an
this very date were tramping the roads of England and haranguing the multitude in churchyards and
market-places.
was a very different though a not less He had three wonderful work that he performed. aims one was to bring a sense of repentance home to the many another was to introduce a new life and the third into the work of the parochial clergy was to make the education of the people a vital fact
But
it
: ;
in the
economy
of the land.
He
devoted his wealth
to this third aim, and not only intimately associated himself with the teachers in the chief schools, but
where they were needed. His preaching, which attracted multitudes, arousedecclesiasticaljealousyandsuspicion. He, however, held the episcopal licence, and for five years conalso founded schools
itinerant
At last in 1383 his licence was withdrawn on the ground that he was His not a priest, but only held deacon's orders. and his labours henceUrban VI. to failed, appeal But he was forth were limited to educational work. no longer alone. He had awakened spiritual life throughout the diocese of Utrecht and the work of Centres preaching had in fact achieved its object. of spiritual life, tiny congregations of humble Christians, had been formed in many places, and these congregations supplied him with a band of
tinued his itinerant work.
to preach

followers
81
who
could aid him in the great educational
work that he had designed. His educational and religious aims were well known, and young men seeking instruction came to him from all parts. We are told that as far as possible he educated them free of charge, and gave them copying work to do, for which he paid them. The result of his efforts was the formation of little bands of young men who lived together a life of These were simplicity, purity, and strenuous work. in Gerard and even the Brothers of Common Life,
Groote's
life
there were several definite communities.
founded a House of Sisters of Common Life at Deventer. Two of these communities are of formed particular interest to us, though they only
He
also
part of a
movement
that spread throughout

until
it
Germany
into
and was vigorous

have
been
was absorbed
It
the
larger issues of the
Reformation.
first
Groote's
disciple,
appears to Florentius
of
Radewin, who suggested
the
formation
com-
munities entirely supported by the joint-earnings of the copyists, who in the days before the introduction Groote conof printing received good payment.
sented,
and advised the drawing up of rules regulating the common life. The first community was that It was formed at Deventer under Florentius.
immediately followed by the House of Sisters in the same town, while the community at Zwolle was With this probably formed about the same time. community Groote stayed, and made it an effective
82
THOMAS A KEMPIS
Groote
felt
mission centre.
that
that
if
the organisation
had suddenly come to life was to grow and so, after consulting prosper it must have a centre with John of Ruysbroek, he decided to found a central monastery to which all the scattered com;
munities
could
look.
The members
of
these
communities were bound by no vow. Membership was from first to last voluntary. To pray, to preach, to teach, and to live by labour were the sole duties of the members. Gerard Groote did not live to see his
work reach
its
prime.
His desire to found a central
monastery, a community of Canons Regular of the Order of Saint Augustine, to watch over the
praying and teaching Order that he had founded, was, however, brought nearly to accomplishment. He could not himself found the monastery, for his
great fortune had already been exhausted but at this very time a friend dying of the plague bequeathed the necessary money to carry out what he knew to
;
be Groote's
Unfortunately Groote himself, and consoling his dying friend, conwaiting upon That was in tracted the horrible disease and died. His ministry had lasted, from the the year 1384. date of his call, some ten years. The results of that
desire.
ministry are
throughout civilisation to-day. Gerard Groote on his deathbed had exhorted his followers to found the monastery which he saw to be
still felt
necessary as a rallying-point
of the
Brothers of
had even indicated the place " a waste and uncultivated spot lying between Deventer
Common
Life.
He

.
83
and Zwolle afterwards called Windesem or Windesheim."^ The monastery, after the lapse of some years, was founded, and among the first six brethren was John, the elder brother of Thomas a
. .
Kempls.
The
foundation
led
to
of
the
central
monastery of
Windesheim
the
establishment of various
other houses, including that
of Mount St Agnes, which was founded in 1398, on a site which had been chosen by Groote many years before, as a Brother House for the Brothers who had originally
settled in the neighbouring
town of Zwolle. After Easter 1398 Brother John a Kempis was elected
Prior of the small band of Augustinian
Canons now
gathered on Mount St Agnes.
This was the spot where Thomas a Kempis was destined to spend his long and holy life, and to become the spiritual light
was quietly spreading Central through Europe. It is almost startling to turn from the restless lives
of a great
movement which
of
men
like Rolle,
Groote, and Gerson to the serene
life of Thomas Haemmerlein, the of one the innumerable writers of the late only fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries besides
placidity of the
our day. Other writers of that period are read out of curiosity or
Chaucer,
survived
to
who
has
somewhat idle purposes of book-making but these two are read of necessity. Their works
for the
;
See Thomas a Kempis and the Brothers of Cofnmon Life, by the Rev. S. Ketllewell, It is a laborious and invaluable work,
^
84
are
part
THOMAS A KEMPIS
of
a
the
spiritual
"Thomas
Kempis was born
heritage of the race. in the year 1379 or
1380 at Kempen, a small but pleasant town in the diocese of Cologne, and situated about forty miles northward of this city, in the flat and fertile country
bordering the Rhine."
laborious
^
His parents were of the

class,
education and
come
that
rate
godliness, apparently had under the influence of either Tauler or Gerard

to
in
yeoman or much
citizen
persons of some
who
Groote.
There seems the mother taught
be some evidence
a
little
to
prove
we
are
told
that she
was
school, but at any"
sedulous in the
education of her children, attentive to the concerns of her household, active in her habits, very
abstemious, not given to much talk, and extremely modest in her behaviour." She is "especially mentioned for her distinguished piety and for the
influence that she exercised over her son
early implanting in his
Thomas
in
mind the love of holy things." ^
certainly followed closely in her footsteps, as she followed in those of her husband. All that we
Her sons
are told of this simple household recalls the household at Nazareth. only know of two children, and Thomas, John was born about the year John
We
was probably one of Groote's earliest He had been sent to the school at scholars. Deventer probably before the birth of Thomas, and had been helped by the community of Brothers of
1364, and
'
Thomas h Ketnpis and the Brothers of Common

Il>id.
Life, p. 27.
pp. 30, 31.

Common
Life there.
85
must have been a witness first community, and have been intimate with Groote himself Long before Thomas set out from home for Deventer, John had joined the Brotherhood; and when, after the death of Gerard Groote, the monastery was founded at Windesheim, he had been chosen as one of the first six Canons Regular, In due time, when Thomas was about thirteen years of age, in the year 1392, he was sent to Deventer to join his brother. His parents did not know that John was already settled at Windesheim. This has always seemed to me a curious fact, and it is still more curious that Thomas
of the foundation of Groote's
He
with
if
all his gift
any,
of penmanship, makes scarcely any, There definite reference to his parents.

of
seems a certain want

absence
seclusion
ties
human
kind,
of of
the
love
of
lovingness, an in the apparent
these
two
is
men from
the
dearest
in
life.
Yet
is
it
of any reference
for
due to the
probable that the absence loss of documents,
we know from his biographical writings that Thomas was peculiarly susceptible to human friendship, and when Lubert Berner was called away from the House to visit his sick father, Thomas records the
Moreover, the brothers were so that certainly devotedly attached to each other we may perhaps assume that in this instance quietism was not guilty of the ingratitude with which it is so often degraded and stained. It was a long tramp from Kempen in the diocese of
incident with pleasure.
;
86
THOMAS A KEMPIS
Cologne to Deventer in that of Utrecht, but the farther march on to Zwolle in the same diocese was a smaller matter. There the brothers met, perhaps for the first time, and there was sealed one of those
deathless friendships that give such a human aspect to the character of Thomas Haemmerlein, The
boy should follow the course of education that had been so great a source of spiritual strength to himself and so many of his friends. He therefore gave him a letter
elder brother determined that the
addressed to the saintly Florentius, the Rector of the Brothers of Common Life at Deventer. Florentius,
the chief disciple of Groote, and himself a contemporary of Ruysbroek and Suso, received the lad with
many welcomes.
"
"
When
came,"
Thomas
tells us,
therefore into the presence of this reverend Father,
he,
me
being at once moved with pity towards me, kept for some little time with him in his own house,
and there he prepared and instructed me for the schools, giving me, moreover, such books as he Afterwards he thousfht I mio^ht stand in need of.
obtained a hospitable reception for me into the house of a certain honourable and devout matron,
who showed much kindness both

other clerks."
to
me and
to several
Between Florentius and Boheme, the rector of It was a the town school, the boy fared well. Education was ever notable age in this respect. an intellectual or a show could who those free to In this dark and troubled age moral title to it.
87
man's intellectual birthright was respected more Thomas Haemmerlein fully than in later times. The remained at Deventer about seven years.
public school
school,
not in name, a songwith such local modifications as had been

in
fact,
if
was
produced by the influence of Groote. The rector was one of the vicars in the parish church, and he in The songpart drew his choir from the school.
school in the fourteenth century gave what we should now call a sound secondary education of the classi-
with special attention to the spiritual needs of the children. The part that they played in the
cal type,
cathedral or church services as choristers rendered
But a special training in matters of ritual essential. the education given was also preparatory to the
prolonged university course, and a Kempis had as his master a distinguished university scholar, while he had in Florentius an adviser who was acquainted with all Groote's educational views, and was more-
These seven years were, therefore, spent in an environment of the most helpful kind. The House of the Brothers was in intimate touch with the school, and after perhaps five years a Kempis entered the House and became acquainted
over a scholar and a
saint.
a life daily life of the Brotherhood of the methods on and modelled laborious simple, Their life became the the early Christian Church. pattern of his life. Almost unconsciously he became
with
the
of the community, joining in their labours, and learning to take a share of the copying work
member
88
THOMAS A KEMPIS
which then formed a main source of income. There he found his first personal friend if we except his
brother
a boy of his
own
age,
Arnold of Schoon-
hoven, a youth of admirable piety, whose sweet and amiable nature played no mean part in determining the direction of the mind of a Kempis.
By the year 1400, when Thomas Haemmerlein was about twenty years of age, his future seemed He had attained to a degree clearly marked out. of scholarship that would have enabled him to have taken up the specialised work of a university he had become a copyist of no mean ability he ha.d
;
;
absorbed the spirit of the Brotherhood in which he had lived. The serenity of his environment had
become a necessity of his life. In any other air he would have pined and died in these high altitudes he could live and could rejoice. Florentius in daily intercourse had woven round him the subtle spell of the simple life, and when manhood came it seemed a matter of necessity, both to the disciple and his
;
of the
at
master, that the youth should pass into a monastery Community. At this date John a Kempis was
Mount St Agnes, and
thither
Thomas was
sent
with letters recommendatory. Florentius had comHe had moulded this young son pleted his work.
of
Flemish peasant on the very pattern of Christ, and had made it possible for him to write
a
a handbook for the followers of Christ.

*'
The two
were never to meet again. The good Father and sweet Master Florentius," as a Kempis calls him.

"
89
died on the Feast of the Annunciation in the same
was written by his disciple, who " The power describes the end in touching words of intense love compelled them to weep for so dear a father, when the light and mirror of all the devout, the solace of all the sufferers, was taken away from But the pious faith of those this temporal light. who loved him, reflecting on the sobriety and modesty of this most excellent priest, was consoled by the hope of celestial glory that would not be denied to him through Jesus Christ, Whom he loved with
year."
His
life
all
his heart, to
Whom
death,
faith.
.
by
.
.
serving
Him
he perseveringly clung unto in the full devotion of

life
For whose praiseworthy
praise
and
glory be to Christ for ever, Who adorned our times with a star of so bright a lustre." ^ Mount St Agnes is a solitary hill near Zwolle.
It is
now known as Agnietenberg.

of
the
In the monastery
Canons Regular of St Augustine, Thomas a Kempis lived, with one brief interval, for Out of the world it lay, out even of seventy years.
here
the ecclesiastical world, to which it nominally belonged.
It
"
nothing of Rome. " were not within Ravino- Paris, roarings London
knew nothing
of Avignon,
It knew nothing the sphere of its contemplation. of ambition, nothing of controversy, nothing even of
the great spiritual movement of which it was the It was the silent, motionless centre of a heart. It was like whirling and incomprehensible world.
'
Thomas a Kempis
atid the Brothers of
Common
Life, pp.
12-13.
90
THOMAS A KEMPIS
a cathedral shrine in a great city, shut in from all the noise and strife of progress, but typifying the goal
of progress
all
the while.
The poor
little
monastery
was composed of a tiny group of men who thought only of Christ and strove to imitate Him whose sins were minute fallings away from their ideal of the Man of Nazareth sins wept over and watched whose hope lay on the other side of the grave that whose faith came so near offered them no terrors
; ; ;
to the faith of the first Christians that the days of
Mount St Agnes Christ seemed to have returned. was the Little Gidding of the fifteenth century. It
noblest form of Christianity that The Rule that or perhaps any age could produce. of the Community inculcated the fundamental law of
represented the
love towards
as
God and man

Christ
;
taught
by
the lessons of humility the preparation of body

;
by proper and simple attention to both body and mind. Nothing in of the was the ideal excess community. The body was to be made absolutely efficient for the purposes of the soul, and the duty of man to his neighbour was to shadow forth the duty of man to his God. Perfect simplicity in dress and manners, food and drink, work and play, was the ideal for the body
and
soul for orderly prayer,
the young, to the sick, perfect charity to all men, to and the to the sinful, was the ideal for the mind
;
love of
God which
of this
passeth
all
understanding was
the ideal for the soul.
No
selfish faith
dominated
did not
the members
little
community.
They
91
seek Calor, Canor, and Dulcor : but they walked with Christ.
it
But nevertheless their Hfe had many pleasures had all the pleasures of simplicity. John a
it
foundation in 1398 till 1407, in addition to superintending the erection of the buildings, planted an orchard of fruit trees, and an arbour, as well as laying out a herb and
Kempis, who ruled
from
its
There were guest cells, vegetable garden. there were many opportunities for converse, especially The work of copying and illuminatat meal times.
ing manuscripts was ever at hand, while the many services were a continual refreshment from labour.
and
During the rule of John a Kempis, seven clerical and three lay brothers were invested. On June loth 1406, Thomas Haemmerlein and Octbert Wild of Zwolle were invested as Canons Regular, also a lay brother, Arnold Droem of Utrecht, who brought many gifts and was appointed Refectorarius. In the year 1408 the brothers were parted. John was directed by the Chapter of Windesheim to form a new community at Bommel on the Rhine. The movement was slowly moving south and east. Brother William Vorniken from Windesheim suc"A lover of poverty and discipline," he ceeded him.
He subsequently ruled the litde house until 1425. became Father-General of the Order. " He enbuilt a larged the boundaries of the monastery he new house for the husbandmen, and folds near at
;
hand
for
the
flocks
he planted divers sorts of
92
trees,
THOMAS A KEMPIS
;
and among them those bearing fruit, in many places in the grounds belonging to the community the rougher portions moreover of the mountain, which for the most part had been as yet untouched, he planted, and reduced the sandy tracts to service.
He
decorated the sacrarium with pictures, wrote

for practising
;
books for the choir, and good copies he also illuminated many books." ^
Such a
and we
of
life,
with
its
simple pleasures and unassum-
ing godliness, offered
many
find that in 1408 the first
attractions to the pious, convent for Sisters

at
Common
Life
was established
Dieppenheim
April 8th 14 12 the church on the Mount, dedicated to St Agnes, was consecrated. It had been many years a-building and the brothers
near Deventer.
On
had done much of the work themselves.

In the year
dained
priest.
1414, Thomas a Kempis was Mr Kettlewell thinks that it
or-
about
this
time that
the
Imitation
was was begun.
There is some evidence that before this Thomas had written certain tracts. But certainly up to this date his time was full enough, and it is difficult
to think that the four tracts of the Imitation, or
any
of them, were written by a man under thirty years On the other hand, as is pointed out in of age. another chapter, the manuscript evidence, for what is it worth, seems to point to an earlier date
than 1414.
It
is
'
at
any
ct,
This evidence requires consideration. rate certain that a complete copy of

Life, p. 239.
Thomas
Kempis and the Brothers of Common

the
first
93
books was available by the year We know that a Kempis visited the mother 1425. House at Windesheim in 1425, and Mr Kettlewell suggests that he did so for the purpose of depositing
three
there the
first
three tracts of the Imitation.
It
is
certainly remarkable that a manuscript formerly at Kircheim, and now in the Royal Library at Brussels,
should
have
est
the
following
it
important
attestation clause attached to

iste
"
:
Notandum quod
Agrnetis
et
tractatus editus
a probo et egregio viro,

Trajecto,
Thoma
Kempis
Maoistro de
Regular!
dictus,
Monte Sanctae
in
Canonico
Thomas
auctoris
de
in
descriptus
ex
manu
Trajecto, anno 1425, in sociatu provincialatus." Mr Kettlewell translates this passage as follows " Let it be observed that this treatise has been
:
composed by a pious and learned man, Master Thomas of Mount St Agnes, and Canon Regular It has been of Utrecht, called Thomas a Kempis.
copied from the manuscript of the author in (the diocese of) Utrecht, in the year 1425, and in the Society's House of the Provincialate." It is in truth a
very striking coincidence that a Kempis should have visited the house of the Provincialate Windesheim
at this very date, and certainly the fact appears directly to connect this, the earliest dated copy, with
a Kempis. writing of
The copy
itself
it
is
not
in
the
hand-
Thomas, but
may
well
have been
copied out at Windesheim from a copy deposited there by a Kempis. What has become of this copy ?
94
THOMAS A KEMPIS
In 1425 he began a lengthy
the whole Bible in Latin,
work the copying of This laborious under-
About that year taking occupied him until 1440. he began the final copy from his pen of the four
books of the Imitation, and of others of his writings. This work was finished in the following year. " The venerable codex is now preserved among the
manuscript
treasures
of
the
Royal
Library
at
It is Brussels, where it is numbered 5855-5861. a small volume, composed of 192 leaves of paper, intermixed at irregular intervals with leaves of
vellum, and written entirely by the hand of Thomas a Kempis, as is attested by the following inscription which ends the manuscript Finitus et com'
:
pletus
anno domini mccccxli. per manus fratris thome Kempis in monte sancte Agnetis prope
Zwollis.'
The
of the
tained,
It is
'
volume a table of the all of which are of

:
writer has placed at the beginning treatises therein conhis
own
composition.
as follows
In hoc volumine hi
libelli
continentur.
Qui sequitur me non ambulat in tenebris.^ Regfnum Dei intra vos est dicit Dominus.^ De Sacramento. Venite ad me omnes qui laboratis.^
Audiam quid
loquatur in
me Dominus
Deus.*
dis'-
De
disciplina
claustralium.
Apprehendite
regularem.
^
"
ciplinam.
Epistola devota ad
1
quemdam
First
Book of the
Imitation.
Fourth Book.
Second Book. Third Book.

Renovamini autem spiritum mentis vestre. Cognovi Domine quia equitas judicia tua. Recommendatio humilitatis. Discite a me.
95
De mortificata vita. Gloriosus apostolus Paulus. De bona pacifica vita. Si vis Deo dignus. De elevatione mentis. Vacate et videte cum
ceteris.
Brevis ammonicio.
"
Ab
exterioribus.'
Althouofh the different treatises are written on separate sheets of paper, and divided by one or
is quite homotranscribed by the same geneous. hand, and no doubts have ever existed as to its
two blank
leaves, the
manuscript
The whole
is
The date affixed to authenticity and integrity. the last page is therefore applicable to the entire was finished and completed in the it volume
:
year 1441."
only other manuscripts that we have now extant from the pen of Thomas are (i) another
The
composed by him and written out in 1456, "and removed from Mount St Agnes to the House of the Jesuits at Courtrai, and afterwards to that of the same society at Antwerp.
collection of treatises
Royal Library at Brussels." (2) "A volume containing the "Sermones ad Novitios " and "Vita sancte Ledewegis," now preserved in
It is
now
in the
the University Library at Louvain."

' The Imitation of Christy being the autograph manuscript of Thomas with an introduction, by d Kenipis reproduced in facsimile Charles Ruelins, Keeper of the Department of Manuscripts, Royal
.
Library, Brussels.
96
THOMAS A KEMPIS
The Autograph manuscript
has had a curious
after the
It It
history.
lay at
St Agnes' until
in
de-
struction
of the
House
1559.
was found
there
in
1577 by Johannes Latomus, the Visitor-
General of the congregation of Windesheim, and taken by him to Antwerp. It passed from him to Jean Bellere, a famous printer of Antwerp, who
died in 1595. In 1590 Bellere gave the volume to the House of the Society of Jesus in Antwerp. On the suppression of the Society it was transferred to
the Burgundian Library at Brussels. These two manuscripts, the Kirchheim manuscript of 1425, and the Autograph manuscript of 1441,
form what
for the
may
call
the
fundamental evidence
;
we
authorship of Thomas a Kempis but, as shall see in subsequent chapters, this evidence
alone.
by no means stands
There
is
one piece
of evidence inherent in the text of the autograph It was manuscript which is of great importance.
first
noticed
is
by Dr Carl
Hirsche of
Hamburg.
the use of a peculiar system of punctuation for the purpose of indicating a peculiar rhythm
or
This
musical
cadence
as
work.
This
running through the entire elaborate system is described by

follows.
M.
Ruelins
We
have
"
the
full
stop followed by a small capital, the full stop followed by a large capital, the colon followed by a small letter, the usual sign of interrogation, and,
lastly,
an unusual sign, the
clivis or flexa,
used in
the musical notation of the period."
This system
.<.
/-
jl^
ooM ^tuu rt^ ft*!* ouv 'vtfîfirt

ihnk <-<?'
<t> tVl)^T6v(U''<:^ fve^
9b \ty^ n3 43.
<Sl4 IM %C^
*^ nnO (T^ 'oTa dynMi^CtJri;'
fMfftnJaflnMj^. : Bin5ff;*).*'fM fo4U6 fuAmf^v) <frfoC*rwffr^>n:;. tM r^C-; mi&^tii!) * omu-
<irtr>j<jH0
cuifij
ftm4 fnnf t)jfxe fwJ
46 fw^futulr.>i .mPi^M0^tj3fcoh^*fT^
tn4*in-uvw(ft?
9w<iw v*w'5|UaWc.<}M
tiiwjfM*
^Hi^^lijttj'
^pC*<3^ i^f Mb'

PART (BEGINNING " ET MUNERA QUAE BOTES DARE ET INFUNDERE,") OF CHAPTER XXI OF THE THIRD BOOK OF THE TRE.\TISE " DE IMIT.VIIONE CHRISTI" FROM THE MANUSCRIPT OF 1411 IN THE HANDWRITING OF THOMAS A KEMPIS. (ROYAL LIBRARY, BRUSSELS
MS.
5855-5861)
THE BEGINNING OF CHAPTER XI ("DE PAUCITATE AMATORUM CRUCIS JESU ") OF THE SECOND BOOK OF THE TREATISE "DE liMITATIONE CHRISTI." FROM THE MANUSCRIPT OF 1441 IN THE HANDWRITING OF THOMAS A
KEMPIS. (ROYAI. LIBRARY, BRUSSELS,
MS. 5855-5861.) THE DELETED WORDS IN LINES 20-I ARE " HT SI JESUS VELLET IJUOU IRENT I.N INTERNUM IP.I AEQUE CON TENTI ESSENT NEC MINIMUM CURARENT." THIS Cf)RRECTION OF HE TEXT liV A KEMl'IS IS STRONC; EVIDENCE THAI' HE IS THE AUTHOR (SEE DR. bigg), the word IN THE MARGIN IS " CRUCIS," FOLLOWING "iGNOMINIAS" IN THE TEXT (LINE n)
: : I
97
"it indicates the is used in a systematic fashion: external structure of the sentence, marks its out-
Hne, and estabhshes the most complete harmony between the sentence and the internal structure
of the ideas."
the importance of this question can hardly be over-estimated. In a subsequent chapter I have
dealt very fully with a class of manuscripts of the Imitation that include only the usual first three
Now
books and are always entitled Musica Ecclesiastica. As will be seen, these manuscripts are particularly numerous in England, and were from very early times attributed to Walter Hilton without there being any idea that the Musica Ecclesiastica and the De Iniitatione Christi were the same work.
Specimens of this class of manuscript very rarely There is, however, one occur on the Continent.
Royal Library at Brussels entitled "Hie est libellus qui vocatur musica ecclesiastica." It ends
in the
:
"
Explicit liber interne consolationis
id
est
tertius
libri
Musice
ecclesiastice."
It
English type.
How
can
we
evidently of the account for the title.

is
Dr Bigg is clearly baffled by it. He includes the whole of the four books under it, and tells us that " The meaning of this title is to be sought, not in the
rhythmical character of the style how could a book be said to be "about music" because it is musical.^
but
or,
in
the subject.
The music
is
more
especially, the melifluum
the Inner Life, Nomen of the

it
Redeemer."
This explanation, interesting though
98
is, is
THOMAS A KEMPIS
title
The
the
It
nevertheless founded upon a misapprehension. of manuscripts of the class is not "de Musica
Ecclesiastica"
though
"de" may occur

is
in some corrupt manuscripts but "Musica Ecclesiastica."
and most scribes took it seen from the illustration be may at the beginning of this volume reproduced from the manuscript "qui vocatur musica ecclesiastica"
a descriptive
title,
in that sense, as
in the
British
Museum.
The Four
Latin Fathers
The title is are producing the ecclesiastical music. taken partly from the cadence of the text, and partly
perhaps from the Divine Music
sustained
the a
mystic.
the
Canor
title ?
that
But how can he

this
connect
Thomas
Kempis
with
curious
Ruelens has supplied the missing link. de But, a Flemish chronicler contemporary with a Kempis, writing under the year 1480, says: " Hoc anno frater Thomas de Kempis de monte
Sanctae-Agnetis, professor ordinis regularium canonicorum, multos, scriptis suis divulgatis aedificat hie vitam sanctae Lidwigis descripsit et quoddam volu;
M. Adraan
men
metrice super illud Qui sequitur meT The "volumen metrice descriptum" h^ginmngQtti seqtcitur
:
me was
''
of course the
''
Mtisica Ecclesiastica'' or the
De Imitatione Christie This, however, still leaves obscure the relationship of England to this parIt does not of course ticular type of manuscript.
entirely dispose of Hilton's claim, but it does associate a Kempis as well as Hilton with this particular type of the hnitation manuscripts.

I
99
of
must
briefly
conclude
my
account of the
life
In 1425, Brother William a, Kempis. Vorniken was promoted to be prior of Windesheim. The sub-prior of St Agnes, Brother Theodoric Clive, succeeded him as prior on the Mount, and in the same year Thomas a Kempis was chosen as
sub-prior.
Thomas
Four years
after his election
happened
occurred
the
only event of public

his
interest
at
that
during
The Agnes. long people of Zwolle and Deventer refused to accept as the bishop of the diocese Sweder de Culenborgh,
residence
St
who had been confirmed Bishop
of Utrecht against the wishes of the majority of the electors. The towns were placed under an interdict, and as the
Canons of St Agnes decided

dict,
to observe the inter-
they were driven out of their monastery by the It was a melancholy exodus. enraged people. The little army of martyrs stayed one night at Hasselt, and took ship for Friesland on their way to the House at Lunenkerc this was in 1429, the year in which Gerson died. Between two and three years were absent. For two years of the time a they But in August or Kempis was with them. he was called September 1431 away to his brother John, who lay sick at the House of Bethania near Arnheim. For fourteen months he nursed him
:
assiduously,
4th,
till
his death at
1432.
Thomas
Of
this
midnight on November Kempis is almost garrulous

in
about the virtues of others

brethren.
his
records of the
little.
beloved brother he says
100
THOMAS A KEMPIS
loved him too well to praise him.
his
He
recites
various charges
his
baldly of the rectorship
He
House at Arnheim, his priorship at St Agnes, at Bommel, at Haerlem, his rectorship of the House " At length he came at Bronopia near Campen. to the House of Bethania, which, being interpreted, is the House of Obedience, where he ended his
obedience, and in a good old age, days happily and was buried within the cloisters after vespers,
when
to
John a
grave.
was present, since I had closed his eyes." Kempis was sixty-seven. Forty years were pass before the brothers were united beyond the
I
for the
Thomas returned from Bethania House was once more open.
to St
Agnes,
did not
He
continue his office as sub-prior, but in later years he filled it once again and also served as procurator.
In 1447 Prior Theodoric Clive resigned his
since he
office,
was bowed with age. He was succeeded by Brother Henry Wilhelm of Deventer after a contested election. Thomas succeeded him as subThree years later a terrible outbreak of the prior.
plague at Cologne called forth special exertions of the St Agnes Brothers, who took over a House of
the Regulars in that town and served the people. By this date a Kempis was approaching old age,
and he seems
holiness.
to
have attained a certain fame,
singularly displeasing to him, as a
man
of peculiar
But though he avoided anything in the nature of assumed saintship, he laboured hard with

pen and voice and took
his "little
cell
101
book
in
little
his pleasures gladly, reading nook," or meditating in his
or in the garden.
finished his second
It was about this time that he volume of treatises still extant. It
''AnnoDofniniM.CCCC.L Vl.finitus et scriptus He was manus per fratris Thomae Kempensisy

ends,
then seventy-seven years of age.
The
years that
followed, calm and beautiful as they are, are marked with the inevitable sadness of great age. Friend after
friend died.
Notice after notice he writes,
in
his
book of records, of friends
many
of
them
friends
of his youth with whom he had lived in continual brotherhood. But what implies sadness to us, in an age when doubt seems to so many to have chilled
the promises of death, was not perhaps a source of sadness to him. As life passed by he became more
and more rapt in the mystic vision "His cell was made to him a Paradise, the Church or choir a Heaven while the Word of God was his food, and the bread of angels his hidden manna to feed upon." He did not expect rest or peace in life, and therefore he found it. But he did not find it only in his He declared, " In omnibus requiem quaesivi, visions. sed non inveni, nisi in Hoexkens ende Boexkens." The "little book in the little nook" still as years passed gave him pleasure and insight into divine things. But to him, as to every true mystic, age brought its " consolation. The bush is bare." At last the full
: ;
conception of God dawns upon the watchful soul. " " The for why ? poet's age is sad
:
102
THOMAS A KEMPIS
answers
of
the
as
Browning
less
full
the
critic's
question.
fuller
It
is
The
not
apprehension
to
God makes
Hfe
and
end draws near.
not true
say
"
And now
a flower
is
is
just a flower."
But the poetry of nature of nature's Creator.

"...
absorbed into the poetry
the purged ear apprehends

:
Earth's import, not the eye late dazed The Voice said Call my works thy friends At Nature dost thou shrink amazed ?
'
God
is it
who
transcends.'
"
These
Agnes.
last
words of one of the greatest of modern
poets have an application to the saintly mystic of St
The years passed swiftly on. thing's of nature, the clamour of the outer world, the ceaseless stir of awakening Europe in no way break The dying
He had given the things that belong to his peace. his message to the world, and now he was realising He still kept in touch his message in his own life.
with
all
that
happened
its
in
the House, though he had
long ceased to be
sub-prior.
He
:
still
jotted
down
its
chronicles.
The
last
under the date January 17th, the morning after high mass, a devote laic, John Gerlac, a native of Dese, near Zwolle, nearly seventy-
entry was made " Died early in 1471
two years
fifty-two
old.
He
in
had lived with us

great humility,
toil
years
more than simplicity, and

for
patience,
enduring much
and penury.
And

among
103
other virtues which he possessed he was preeminent chiefly for that of taciturnity, so that through a whole day he would say very little also in his
:
labours, and while performing other duties, he was an example of silence." Silence was about to fall upon the Saint of the Mount. An entry in the Chronicle tells us that on July 26th, 147 1, "at the close of a long summer's day, after compline',' he died. His long eventless life of more than ninety was over. The " purged ear " long had years
The rest caught the heavenly music. but such a silence, we may believe
is if
silence
we
hold
the mystic faith, as is full of harmony and ripe with eternal life. Not in vain had he cried in the
Oratio
tui
Aurea^
tot
"
inter
Protege et conserva animam sei'vuli discrimina vitae corrtiptibilis, ac,
comitante gratia tua, dirige per viam
pads ad per-
petuae patriam
felicitatis et claritatis''
The age
trasts
of
Thomas
Kempis was one
of con-
vivid
and
significant.
We
pass
from
the
depths of wickedness to the heights of saintliness and spiritual rapture within the confines of the same
Church.
On
the one
hand we see atheism avowed
and shameless, on the other an intensity of belief that would seem to make even reasonable doubt poor and naked. At this distance of time we see clearly
into the strata of religion in the fifteenth see a Visible Church claiming to base century.
enough
'
We
Lib.
iii.
cap. 59.
So-called in
MS. note
to
Ulm
edition (B.M.).
104
its
THOMAS A KEMPIS
its
authority on
corporate position,
its
immense
see in wealth, and its immemorial traditions. fact that it is supported by an Invisible Church which
We
preserved the faith that alone makes the existence Had the Invisible Church of a Church tolerable.
ceased to
exist,
the organised forms of Catholicism
must have passed away. It was this Invisible Church that made the Reformation possible, and so preserved
organisation of Christianity in Europe from In this, from the social point of view, dissolution. lies the value of the all-pervading mystic movement
the
that
resulted
in
in
spiritual
crown
the Reformation and found its The Imitation of Christ. Certainly
there are lessons for to-day in the spiritual history Now as of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
we are on the verge of great changes then it was the Renaissance of Letters that was coming, coupled with the Reformation and the discovery of the Far West. To-day a different Renaissance, a
then
:
different
hand.
Reformation, a different discovery are at Science takes the place of Letters, a social Reformation takes the place of a political and
Reformation, the discovery of the Far the awakening of Japan and China take the
religious
East
place of the discovery of the Far West. History does not repeat itself, but the same principles are at Mysticism too is now as widespread, as play.
deep-rooted as
when
the
German
mystics taught
and thought. Europe and the Churches of Europe have before them much the same problem that was

before
105
will
them
in
the
fifteenth
century.
four
How
they once more
solve
it ?
Will practical
it
mysticism conquer
ago, the place of the
as
conquered
that
centuries
or will all-pervading
Doubt take
alone
unwavering Faith Europe possible ?
rendered
modern
SOME FIFTEENTH CENTURY MANUSCRIPTS AND EDITIONS OF THE

IMITATION
'T^HE
-^
British
Museum
are
six
in
Imitation
of the manuscripts number. They offer
some
features of considerable interest
and are
in
excellent condition.
are of very early date and are possibly the earliest extant manuscripts of the work. One of these early manuscripts should
Two
play an important part in any adequate discussion as to the authorship of the four treatises, for it is attributed to John Gerson. None of these manuscripts appear,
however, to have been used with effect by any of the many militant writers on this vexed
question.
that
is
Kettlewell cursorily examined them, but with so little care that he even misdates one
specifically dated.
Mr
They probably
interested
him
since they offer no direct support to the The oldest authorship of Thomas a Kempis.
little,
manuscript Is one of the Royal Manuscripts and is This Codex beofins indexed under Codex 8 C. vii. in with lives Anglo-Saxon of St Agatha and St folio 22b begin a series of theological On Agnes.
treatises (such as the Contemplacione beginning on folio 1 2 lb), all in ecclesiastical hands of about the
106
De
%\VJ^-A b.OA\me -uwHHE <?-:r'^ba\' camccI
It
:.
t-^J
î
Urn
'
^
'
urn
'<'
-i!
'r I,'
1.5.~>i
-^rvmutr.
"sJ-ioTof
^1
.*>.
cvlUt-^,
tft-
mi.')Wftftnvâl(.rt*':^ti^*r]htjT^
niTTj vpi nirrt
Uatcni
oui
juti^ uult
pUnt
tr-"Jtl]i^ '*?'/
'
cite
|^
c\uÂl^nintmc; 'S't Jox|rtT>ra-m t>ttlli4ir cvrcti ct-TnTmt? pbUojSjwSjijiâ^siifiFa ami ti>tVT>-> t-iti p-iolcj/f f
[in*
Cantarc v:::r,ct-Âna \j/kmf]

ilU )oK
*
(^
'uAr.irurnT
ct)l-
ova
fuTna
uantVaf v2ttxi. Amaxi ts:,tw et-
/itwuc jfhi
..-J:-_
Ml'SEfM N
THE BRITISH MUSEUM (BURNEY 3U) OF THE TREATISE " DE IMITATIONE CHRISTI." THE MS. IS UNDATED BUT IT WAS WRITTEN PROBABLY NOT LATER THAN 1120. PART OF CAP. I. (LIl!. L) IS HERE REPRODUCED.
MS. IN
SOME MANUSCRIPTS AND EDITIONS
107
:
same date and prefixed by the following rubric " In hoc versu ostendit quadrupliciter debemus laudare beatam virginem Mariam videlicet, quia
est utilis, nobilis, mirabilis, amabilis, et
laus invitat nos
timorem.
quod prima ad ejus honorem. Secunda ad ejus Tercia ad laborem. Quarta ad amorem."
The De Imitatio7ie Christi manuscript

149,
begins on folio and follows straight on without any break from
a short treatise of the usual theological type. The consists of manuscript only twenty-four chapters of
book and the greater part of the twentyfifth or last It ends chapter of the same book. at the bottom of a folio and presumably abruptly continued on succeeding folios now lost. There is to show whether there was only one of the nothing four treatises or more, or even all. It is not, however, an unreasonable suggestion to make, that whothe
first
ever tore off the succeeding folios did so with the purpose of securing some other work beginning on
the next
ends
is
place where the manuscript almost the end of the first treatise. Therefolio.
Now the
fore at the top of the next folio there began either the second treatise of the hnitation or some other
work.
would have any reason for separating the second treatise from the first, but a person may well have had some reason for separating some
independent treatise from the treatise beginning de imitatione Christi et contemptiL nnmdi. For this
reason
treatise
I
No one
think that this was a manuscript of the first only, which in all probability was current
108
THOMAS A KEMPIS
We
know
that in fact
before the other treatises.

this first treatise
does occur by itself, for we have a manuscript at the Bodleian Library and very early
It is thereprinted editions of this first book only. fore not at all unlikely that an early draft of the first treatise was current before the others, and was
thus incorporated in this collection. This fact is, I think, confirmed the date of the by manuscript.
The Museum
century.
authorities date
it
as early fifteenth
This
may mean any date between 1400

latter date
and 1440.
appears to be almost out of the question. somewhat careful search has not revealed any middle or late fifteenth century
The
manuscript written in a hand that resembles this ecclesiastical hand.
in
the
least
The
nearest
manuscript so far as the formation of letters goes is a manuscript in the Bodleian Library (MS. Bodl.
758) on The Passion of our Lord by Michael de Massa, an Austin Friar, and dated 1405.^ There is a distinct resemblance between the two hands, but it
must be noticed that one manuscript is in English and the other in Latin, so that it is perhaps not a
On the other hand, proper test to compare them. it might be said that a resemblance in handwriting which appears in two languages ought not to be
Of course, if the hands are the same, neglected. it does not follow that the dates of the manuscripts
are the same.
man's age makes very

it
little differ-
ence to his handwriting, and

^
might well be that the

II.
See Paleographical Society, Series
Plate 134.
109
Massa MS, was written when the style was current, and the Imitation MS, by a scribe who retained in
age a style then out of fashion. As against this, however, it must be noted that the Massa manuscript appears to be the latest dated manuscript in this particular style, and the law of probahis old
bilities
is
as
much
in
favour of the earliness of the
Imitation as of the Massa manuscript. might be the late survival, and the
The
latter
former
an
example of a current style. In that event the Imitation manuscript would belong to the fourteenth century, and this would render possible the argument Hilton. in favour of the authorship of Walter This, however, is not likely, and we may take it
that the manuscript
is
not earlier than the
Massa
manuscript.
It
may
therefore be as early as 1405,
and it may also be as late as 1440. On the whole it seems not unreasonable to adopt an approximation to the earlier rather than the later date, in view
of the possibility that this manuscript only consisted That would of the first of the four treatises.
point towards an early origin and therefore an early It is to be noticed date of copying into this Codex,
that this manuscript varies in some ways from the The title of the first chapter usually accepted text.
runs
de imitatione Christi
tatum. mundi.
et contemptu omnium vaniThe title in the Royal manuscript runs
de imitatione Christi et \yanitate et] contemptu mundi. The words in square brackets have been added by a
somewhat
later
hand.
Another difference
is
that
110
THOMAS A KEMPIS
the opening quotation from St John's Gospel, Qui sequitur me non anibulat in tenebris usually o-iven, is
varied and completed by the addition of the words The manuscript does not in fact to the belong type of manuscripts usually associated with the Autograph manuscript of 1442.
sed habebit lumen vitae.
Neither,
call
however, does
the
"Hilton"
is
belong to what I may type, of which the best dated

it
instance
the
Magdalen manuscript of
to
1438.1
It is
on the whole not absurd
contend that
this British
the oldest extant manuscript manuscript of the Imitation. It is true that it may possibly be
is
Museum
as late as 1440, but the probabilities seem to indicate that it was written between 1405 and 1420.
But whatever
its
age may
be,
it
is
probably not
I
much
refer.
older than the next manuscript to which
shall
The manuscripts themselves cannot be com-
pared, as they are in hands incapable of comparison, the one being a peculiarly ecclesiastical and the other a purely literary hand. This second manuscript
numbered 314 in the Burney collection of The Burney catalogue of 840 refers manuscripts. it to ''Sec. The view that this manu15 ineuntisT
is
1
script belongs to the
century makes
it
an
"beginning" of the fifteenth The important document.
authorities are at present inclined to confirm the view of the specialists of 1840. At any rate it
cannot be later than 1440, and there

*
is
really very
the usual
This type
is
represented
in the British
Museum under
title
Musica
Ecclesiastica.
tnrt
f8b* III
mntmi'i igttis ai-inTm-'^hi crtt flctiis

i fetor- mlautrtu^
jonrtu^
Iftlor ? znloi. rtrtor
t QftoJ- oh(hifsi(tfi
* Ri^ttm tlttSMlha n'ilhnRoh\miOfattiuUotvrroi($iîr tmic9<itit(trtUitimcs_f(tmc0i{ttt$-(nsiiB ^ (i\l^lfnt
muim
fDiTtnn|Jtu
III
uumm-tibtr p:umi6 -^ Q^rtiiUi^3^wlme iioit mbttUtt m tnicDno ft {)<^bit intt mat ttm^cr (tit nevîa mMiumttS Imucji
fquitttr
jjitiiK
rtiinninrt^ff^tiu5
flD
m$ mh? t ma.'5 mtrtanirr.fi

tnrthtrmiportmiA
tjii
rinu
iffmnt'inmiimn #
ouu
ttnhrtc coiHic^ l/Dcran>fnmj
nmi
fit ftwDiii ri! iirtfl tlnl
o'^torttm^
6 rmrti^
frtnut~f|;
munttrct, fcB^ lifrilft t ipu (^H rtbffimimii f(errt ibi Miimtx iiHiH! frfirqnnmmj&ttti cims^n.jtm
If
mam
ffn
S|s'!
tits
IfRhmt-m'i
irf-
ftutc imit^jlnjCrtriiiiJiA'
^'i iictha
ftt
itttMsctv oprtrf
.|iJrft
toMitt iritnin (uatn iQi (lu&*
WttfyimAtc- e\inb
<-
tjiJi
flto ir
fnnttjm dtJfuUtrr fi
jioy
flfta
car3 ^fJiilrtntt
fanitt frm
wiZr Mplia&e
ft
timttm
!T&<i
"O
Jmi
*
iwrfitoffl urtrt
cmai- tw mn!.5)iJtD
tnfi$t^
(atHir Aitii'tmncn^
fnnr
Jjitl
on* ^tmitiaaticdCnvcc
mam
^"^
mtipi
fc
hbhntn
iTtinfl
mm
rnttn q5 îplo{oiii\0u t^'.J[5]|*'
im *
*ni
iOi ibti Catiur.
(tma
i c^ (jflfricunrt
iJ-
,|j
mtj.-nqrfii
tmiw fid
inttt
ttgtid
trirttJA.'feanrfrtiJ
/jaojjj* jrtt
fl^
OmrnM ^^ttunt^ ijrcrc.

uttnm
^mio:.îsfta6
aha VJUJrcs Bbittim
f5ftTOt>&tI
ffr lansftm î!f' flptttt puinn\>tfti?5
i frbtrrt wrttt
nsmi^-wanrttt^ |>rtm
jBif
rii;
/frtftrm
cyttux Hrtmn folu
rf^
5ki
rrlmmtr tfiOfv
no
6ffttrti{np
uii
atn|jitrmu^ww
TISE
THF.
PART OF THE FIRST CHAPTER OF THE FIRST BOOK OF THE TREA"DE IMITATIONS CHRISTI." FROM THE IMPERFECT ROYAL MS, OF THE FIRST HOOK. S.c.vii. (BRITISH MUSEUM)
MANUSCRIPT IS UNDATED BUT IT BELONGS TO THE BEGINNING OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY AND IS rROHAIJLY THE EARLIEST F:XTANT MS. OF THIS WORK (CF., MS.. BODL., 758, DATED 1405).

little
is
111
in
reason to suppose that it is as late as this. It a small or minuscule humanistic Italian hand.
written on paper, and has many points of resemblance to a manuscript of Terence also on paper in a renaissance hand and dated 14 19. The obserIt is
vations as to the fixing of dates of manuscripts made above apply generally, and it would of course not be
safe to say that this manuscript can also be dated
But the probabilities are equally in favour 14 1 9. of an earlier or a later origin within a short range
1840 plainly gave it an anything later than 1420 we could not apply the phrase "Sec. 15 ineuntis." This document is clearly one of the earliest manuearlier origin,
for to
of years.
The
specialists of
scripts of the Imitation.
If
it
was written before
14
9,
it
is
Museum
manuscript in the Royal at Brussels, which has the following passage

"
earlier than the
at the foot of the first
tractatus editus est
page a probo
Notandum quod
iste
et egregio viro,
magistro
Thoma, de Monte Sanctae-Agnetis et Canonico regulari in Trajecto, Thomas de Kempis dictus, descriptus ex manu auctoris in Trajecto, anno T425, in sociatu If we take this to mean provincialatus." that in the year 1425 the work was attributed to a Kempis, we must in the weighing of evidence set up
this
British
Brussels
script
"
is
Museum manuscript against the Royal Museum manuscript. The former manuit is
:
probably the earlier of the two, and yet

it
absolutely explicit as to the authorship, for

Incipit libellus
devotus et
utilis
begins a compositus domino
112
THOMAS A KEMPIS
Joanne Geersem Cancellarlo Parisiensi." This manuscript was almost certainly written in the lifetime of
ChanUniversity, of Paris about 14 19 and died in 1429. If it was written in his lifetime, it is probable that it was written before he retired from
Jean
le
Charlier de Gerson,
who ceased
to be
cellor of the
the Chancellorship of the University, for the scribe, one may surmise, would not call him the Chancellor of the University if he had ceased to occupy that
position.
This
to
some extent corroborates
the
It is noticeable early date of the manuscript. " " is used with that the word compositus respect to Gerson, while it is used in no manuscript with It is also noticeable that respect to a Kempis. the Imitation should have reached Italy at so early
a date
if it
was written by a Kempis.
The manuscript offers difficulties that do not seem to me to have been cleared up by the advocates of As an advocate of that the a Kempis authorship. authorship, as one who has practically no real doubts as to that authorship, but who also believes that the
case against a
strength, follows.
I
Kempis should be
stated in
all
its
am inclined to explain this The debates at the Council
manuscript as of Constance
had made Gerson perhaps the most notable figure in the religious world of Europe. His flight after the Council was ended, and his retirement into a purely contemplative life, added to the interest that attached to any works that came from his tireless This work suddenly appeared without the pen.

name
113
of any author attached. The very anonymity seemed under the circumstances to indicate the
authorship.
It
may very
at
well be that a
copy of the
work
after
fell
into the
hands of an
Italian scribe directly
the sessions
fled
Gerson had
gundian enemies. very naturally have attached Gerson's name to his copy the name of the most famous religious thinker in Europe, now suffering exile and persecution and so may have given us the copy that lies in the
this
Constance had ended, and from the vengeance of his BurIf that were so, the scribe would
In any event the fact that very early copy bears Gerson's name as the undoubted composer is one that has to be reckoned
British
Museum
to-day.
with in any adequate discussion of the problem. It shows that before the date of the autograph copy Gerson was supposed to be the author, and the
fact of the
authorship
in
is
stated with a clearness
which
does not appear
early manuscript that the claim of the I am supports Augustinian canon. convinced on other grounds that Gerson was not the
any
author, but
tion
it
can only account for the early attribu-
of the work to him by the explanation that was the persistent practice in the Middle Ages to attribute anonymous works to certain popular
writers.
Everything in England of a mystical character was attributed first to Rolle and later to Hilton and Gerson, as the greatest contemplative writer on the Continent, was naturally accepted as the
;
author of the Imitation.

H
Fine distinctions of style
114
THOMAS A KEMPIS
Most Christian unknown pen of a monk
a work from the pen of Doctor was worth more than
in
did not trouble the scribes

the
a work from the

off
the far-
independent diocese of Utrecht.
remaining- British Imitation can be deak
The
Museum
with
manuscripts of the
briefly.
more
is is
The
in
Harleian manuscript number 3216 No author end, "21 Dec. 1454."

manuscript, but a much hand has added on the
later,
first
dated at the
named
"
the
probably a modern
folio
Thomas de Imitatione Christi." The de only real point Kempis of interest about this manuscript is the fact that it proves that as late as 1454 the work was passing from hand to hand unrecognised. The Hilton class
of manuscripts
the Musica Ecclesiastica class
are
further evidence of this, but they have a different The fourth manuscript I shall notice is origin.
the Additional
is
This Manuscript, number 11,437. was but written between undated, probably It is in a German hand much 1465 and 1470.
larger than but
somewhat resembling the hand of Thomas a Kempis himself. This manuscript attri" Cancellarius Parusiensis" {sic). butes the work to not It contains two books only of the Imitation three books, as stated in the British Museum manuof 1905 and is a bad copy in the script catalogue
cf Parusie?isis. It begins of text and spelling fifth of the codex. on folio manuscript is an
way
no
interesting example of the Musica Ecclesiastica type. It is a Royal Manuscript (7 B viii.), with a magnifi-

cently illuminated frontispiece.
It
is
115
in
a Flemish
hand of the
late fifteenth
century, not later than
1480 or earlier than 1460. The superb frontiswhich is reproduced as a frontispiece to this piece book represents the ecclesiastical music as given to the world by the four Latin Fathers. Gregory the
bellows
Great as Pope is playing a two-manual organ, the of which are pumped by Saint Jerome
as
dressed
are
a Cardinal.
Two
to
bishops (Augustine
cross)
with book and crook, and
Ambrose with a
the
music.
apparently singing
We
look
through an open window to a green landscape. The work which follows the illumination is attributed After the Registrtim the work begins to no author.
as follows "
:
Incipit liber interne consolacionis qui
Et dividiturintrespartes. Prima pars continet xxvcapitulaprincipales Capitulum primum de imitacione Christi et contemptu omnium vanitatum mundi." The first book ends as follows
vocaturmusicaecclesiastica.
:
explicit prima pars libri interne consolacionis qui vocaturmusicaecclesiastica." Thesecond book begins: "
"
Incipit
plicit
secunda pars ejusdem

libri
libri,"
and ends
"exqui
:
secunda pars
interne consolacionis
vocaturmusicaecclesiastica."
"
The third book

:
begins
and ends "explicit Incipit tercia pars ejusdem libri," tercia et ultima pars libri interne consolacionis qui
:
vocatur. musica ecclesiastica."
type of manuscript I have written somewhat fully in a subsequent chapter, and shall not deal with it further here except
this
is
Of
to note the fact that there
no author mentioned, and
116
that there
THOMAS A KEMPIS
is nothing in the title to identify the manuwith the De Imiiatione Christi. This and the script
quite independent title probably led to the fact that throughout the Middle Ages the Musica Ecclesiastica
and the De Imiiatione Christi were always regarded as different works by different authors. There only remains one other British Museum
It is the manuscript of the Imitation to be noted. second Harleian manuscript (number 3223) of the
four
treatises.
It
has one point

:
in
common
with
the Magdalen manuscript of 1438 and the Autograph it is dated. manuscript of 1441 John Dygoun, a recluse of Sheen, wrote part of the Magdalen manuscript
the original of the Musica Ecclesiastica type. Thomas a Kempis of course wrote the Autograph
This Harleian manuscript was finished " Ex Floreto" seems to refer to 1478 ex fioreto." some bad Latin verses that end the MS., though
manuscript.
"
one would like to find in the phrase the name of the scribe. This was seven years after the death of Thomas a Kempis, and eight years after the issue from the press of the first edition of the work under his name. Yet the scribe presumably an Italian seemed to have no doubt as to the authorship. The manuscript " Incipit libellus devotus et utilis compositus begins a domino Johani Gersem cancellario pariensis de
:
mundi."
Imitatione Christi et contemptu omnium vanitatis (i-zV) It is interesting to notice that three of these
six manuscripts attribute the
work
14 19)
to Gerson.
calls
The
author
Burney manuscript
{circa
the
Wv.
vpiu-iut-CipihilA
^7iot>!t-lil.vUufc}nu>nir Sc imVil
Cc>|x-î"it-iij
'
Ainn UAû f
ii mncit.
Ciiplm-p.
yi fccjiiit^mcnc' amlîilat-! ttnc

.,.
^
^'h
I
IbT
if cimt-
^nC Kcc (ut- lit-A icpt
iiiCiTii
4 iTioTcijmitxrmitR^.
!>
ocl
c^nwnFiTii r j jt iitta ytni xrî mcair.irj icov^ prccellU'. cnricârm

I
tniic-njr<:t-. S::i>c6rin^t'a;Tnij1t
.>:
fr^cqTi
rtdijnt'. Q: i ii aiil- unit- : icrlî inh:tli.j;crc 3C cp vpi f.xpi tcr ttt roniA ttim;nja^ {l\i fhidc.ir coforrn-i
plciie %
n fiir. ct - fprn xp
TC Q_ii|idprrdcf)
n'::
.\ltn
Jruiitatxra!
END OF INDEX OF CHAPTERS OF THE FIRST BOOK AND PART OK THE FIRST CHAPTER OF THE FIRST BOOK OF THE TREATISE " DE IMITATIONS CHRISTI FROM THE HARLEY MS. 3223 (BRITISH MUSEUM)
'
THIS MS. CONTAINS
THE WOKDS "ex FLORETO
THE FOUR BOOKS, AND "

;
IS
DATED
1478.
THE DATE
SCRIBE,
POSSIBLY REFERRING TO
THE
IS FOLLOWED BV OR TO THE VERSES
WHICH FOLLOW.

Dominus John Geersem, Chancellor
;
117
;
of Paris
the
Additional Manuscript {circa 1465) calls him simply Chancellor of Paris while the Harleian manuscript (1478) calls him Dominus John Gersem, Chancellor of Paris. No manuscript refers in any way to
Thomas a Kempis if we except the modern or almost modern attribution on the Harleian manunumbered 3216. It should be noticed that Gerson is spelt Gersem and Geersem in this manuthis spelling is associated with the script, and
script
Chancellor of Paris.
of the attribution of the
This alone entirely disposes work to the imaginary John
Gersen of Vercelli.
bulk of the English manuscripts are of the Musica Ecclesiastica type. Five of those mentioned
The
above are, however, not of this type, and to these we may add three Bodleian manuscripts. Two are in dexed with a curious note of doubt as to their oriorin.
One is included
in the
Digbycodices(37.5)and isdated
:
'
circa 1450. It is indexed as follows "liber primus tractatus Tho. a Kempis, sive cujuscunque sit, De Imitacione Christi et contemptu vanitatum mundi.'"
The book
libellus
or tract concludes as follows
"
:
explicit
de Imitacione Christi et contemptu vanitatum mundi." This is apparently an instance of the first book only, and accounts for the printed editions containing only one tract.
The second
is
among the Laud
It is MSS.,^ and belongs to the sixteenth century. indexed as follows "Johannis Gersoni sive Johannis
:
The
third
MS.
is
Marshall, 124
(lib.
ii.
cap. 12, in Dutch).
118
a
THOMAS A KEMPIS
sive cujuscunque
sit
Kempis
de imitatione Christi
libri
quinque,
praefixa." that it adds nothing of value to the controversy as Neither of these to the authorship of the Imitation.
cum tabula capitum unicuique libro The reference to John a Kempis is so late
fragments contain any reference to the author, though Bernard has referred the latter to a Kempis. The first, however, appears for some reason to have
been indexed under the
title
Musica Ecclesiastical the
Hatton's correspondent^ early eighteenth century. in 1706 declared that it bore that title. Possibly
there are other manuscripts in the country that are not of the Musica Ecclesiastica type, but I have seen
no note of them.
consideration of
some
of the
more important
printed editions of the Imitation will be found to throw a good deal of light upon the authorship of the work as well as on its early
fifteenth-century
and extensive
issued,
its
it
popularity.
The
first
edition
was
is
author,
thought, the year after the death of This 147 1, from the Augsburg press.
interesting edition, an edition older of the manuscripts, attributes the work
famous and
than
to
many Thomas
a Kempis, and
issue.
is
the very early date of mination dispels a curious error adopted by some students of the Imitation, the belief that the
title
important because of This edition on exa-
De
Imitatione Christi was
first
the whole
collection of treatises in the

^
adopted for well-known
See chapter
iii.
hfaelius CDnfolatonuo a^ inftcucto; seuotos Jfjindpit Cuiuspitniu capitulu eAteimitamcppi a ^temptu ^jamni vanitamm tminoi.^ ^t!am totu libelium fita^gdlmit fdlics&hisWnm Ctinicadoiic;qptrtajc cuangelium (âthd a^pellatut litst gcnaacDis il5u srpi ^p ^ in peimo camtlb fit rncntfo s gOTcracone
Xpi
fcdiTi camcm ~
^Jndpitpjimumcapiaitum VireqmtmenoambislatintaidsiB&ic &n8. Jbcc funcxetba jcpi ^b? a&moncni
jqtenuo vttam dus ct moscs itnitcmut fi \Elim2 xetadtst iUuiati ct ab dI oxttatc CD2i7is liBad ûtntn u igac Elubiu nrm Ttt i vitail5umc&itati.Ddxina;:pi-oe8tdriu8srca>j2 {Kccelhtct qui fpm tei babrnMbi majiiHR abfco&itu inuenient .$c& otingit g^ multt ef feequcnd aubitu euangeltjipatuum etfatmiim fen dunt -quia fpttim td nori babme .HXui aiJtem '^puk p!ene ct fapise jq>i
'
verba JatcUs<|ta:'DpD2ffitvttDmirjvuamruamiU
ftuoeat ^fonrjarc. CliuD pzotsdt ribi ^ta te trinitatc Sifcutefc ftcatcas bumihtafs V!?is îfpticsas fan&e
^^
j^
tnmtati.V'cte aita vcrisa won feaunc fandumct iuftiimfcb vittaoila vita dftdt fKMnincni eeo eaoim
Opto
mao-tsfcsitirc co^.^psjnfiionOTt
.
eifFmitionan
omnium pbilofopboa
î frites tocam bibikm jgceedns ct

&ia:afdtj)tufri^&cffct'rjnc
(s|!k
fdteesus
^
cadtatectgradatd.Vanieasvanitataniômma vamtas ptct amate seu et itU foh ûicE, Jfta i fiima
î0iidapa:conttnipaimniunbitcnEeceat?iKlcftia ^/ainitao igitut p^ minas gicutas quetctE etin
" ^>rM-Wwmt
ilhsffecarE.VajRstas^cilbonicHeemijn&samHtP cc in alttjm fe qcto'iciKAâitJtas dl cacnis echeeda

Uia odiaecaEe JVntx fcqui mocmti cprntct Stauitec pumd. Vaastas dt b^gasn '?if&m optatc
tjtse
mk
tenavitanon cittare.Vammsd^ psxrcTitan vitam folura aîaacete- et q fots Sunt non p^cuiiaax*
PART OF THE FIRST CHAPTER OF THE FIRST BOOK OF THE TREATISE "DE IMITATIONE CHRISTI " FROM THE " EDITIO PRINCEPS" ISSUED AT AUGSBURG ABOUT THE YEAR 1471.
:
THE PREFATORY NOTE AS TO THE TITLE

HIMSELF.
IS POSSIBLY FROM THE PEN OF THOMAS A KEMPIS THIS EDITION ATTRIBUTES THE WORK TO THOMAS A KEMI'IS.

Nuremburg
edition of 1494.
if
I
119
is
think the
title
practically implied
early manuscripts, and it is actually used in late manuscripts, such as the Harleian manuscripts numbered But this question of title is directly dealt 3223.
in
not directly used in
some
with
the
Augsburg printed
edition
"
:
of
147
1.
The work
consolatorius
begins with this statement Incipitlibellus ad instructionem devotorum Cujus

est
primum capitulum
de imitacione Christi
et con-
Et quidam temptu damni [sic] vanitatum mundi. totum libellum sic appellant scilicet libellum de
imitatione Christi. sicut evangeliumMathei appellatur liber generacionis Jesu Christi Eo quod in primo
capitulo sit mentio de generacione Christi
carnem.
Incipit primum capitulum." a quite fascinating item of literary history. find the first publisher discussing in the year 1471 this vexed question of the title, and actually poking
secundum Here we have
We
fun at those
who
call
"
the whole book "libellus de

title
if
imitatione Christi
It is as
from the
of the
first
chapter.
absurd, he says, as
we were
to call the
according to St Matthew the genealogy of Jesus Christ because mention is made in the first chapter of our Lord's genealogy according to the
Gospel
flesh.
This statement makes

in
it
even
the
lifetime
of
Thomas
quite clear that a Kempis and
before the days of printing the work was known as the Imitation of Christ. The quiet humour of the analogy tempts one to believe that this intro-
ductory note was from the pen of a Kempis.
It
has
120
his
THOMAS A KEMPIS
manner and
his style,
and justifies the belief that he had adopted the title which has for centuries
struck the imagination of the world. Whoever the editor was, and despite his humour, it is clear enough that the title is adopted in this first edition. The
first
"
the edition of 1471 ends as follows Explicit primus liber de imitacione Christi et de
in
:
book
contemptu omnium vanitatum mundi." The second " book ends Explicit liber secundus de imitatione Christi scilicit de ammonitionibus ad interna trahentibus." The third book begins "Incipit tercius liber de imitacione Christi qui tractat de interna consolacione " Christi ad animam fidelem," and it ends explicit liber interne consolationis qui est tercius de imitacione Christi." The fourth book opens with the title and ends, "explicit liber quartus de imitatione Cristi in quo specialiter tractatur de venerabili sacramento altaris." The volume concludes as follows: " Viri
: :
:
montis sanctae Agnetis in Trajecto regularis canonici libri de Christi imitatione numero quatuor finiunt feliciter, per Gintheum zainer ex
egregii
Thome
The reutlingen progenitum literis impressi ahenis." hnitation was therefore ushered into the world of
printed books under the name of the famous though unofScial saint of Mount St Ag-nes.
consideration of the
more notable
editions of
title
the fifteenth century shows us that the
rapidly
became
these
settled.
It will
be convenient to consider
and other reasons. The Metz edition of 1481 came from one of the early
editions
for
this

monastic presses,
fratrem
"
121
impresse
in civitate
tarum.
mille
first
Johannem Etgerhardum de nova civitate. Anno domini ccccLXXxii." The book consists only of the
and follows the
the
title
Colini ordinis
Metensi per fratrum carmeli-
treatise
of that treatise
"
1441: autograph ammoniciones ad spiritualem vitam utiles." given

to
as
in
of
incipiunt
It
seems
that manuscripts of the separate treatises were abroad without any name of the author attached.
show
This view
is
in
accordance with the evidence of
English manuscripts.
In the following year, 1483, there was issued from the Venice press the first printed edition, so far as I
am
aware, that attributed the work to Jean Gerson.

edition begins
"
:
The
Incipit liber
It
primus Johannis
Gerson cancellarii parisiensis." and gives a special title to the
The
four books are

:
named
as
names the chapters, last book or treatise. usual, and are num:
bered thus
tertius.
Liber primus, Liber secundus, Liber But the last book ends as follows " Explicit
is
liber quartus et ultimus

in these
de sacramento altaris." The words: colophon "Johannis Gerson cancellarii parisiensis de contemptu mundi devotum et utile opusculum finit m.cccc.lxxxiii per Petrum loslein de langencen alemanum Venetiis feliciter impressum. Laus Deo." The title in this edition is " de contemptu mundi." This may have led to its confusion with some other work by Gerson, but it is probable that the attribution to Gerson was in the copy used by the printer.
122
THOMAS A KEMPIS
at
in
Another edition of the Imitation was issued

1485. this edition there
Museum copy of on the is written fly-leaf, in an old manuscript hand, "Thomas de Kempis de Imitatione Christi Johannis de Gerson Tractatus de Meditatione cordis, Venetiis 1485." This is the earliest edition that I have seen in which these two It should be comworks are printed together.
Venice
In the
British
pared with the remarkable but very late manuscript in the Bodleian Library referred to above among the Laud MSS. which is indexed as follows
:
Johannis Gersoni, sive Johannis a Kempis, sive cujuscunque sit, de imitatione Christi libri quinque,
"
cum
tabula capitum unicuique libro praefixa."

"
:
The
work begins
Incipit libellus
devotus et
utilis.
De
imitatione Christi et contemptu omnium vanitatum In this manuscript the "de Meditatione mundi,"
2. fifth book as I am far error so a unique of the Imitation aware, either in manuscripts or printed books of the
Cordis" of Gerson has been treated as
Imitation, but one that

aeval
mind was
to
shows how ready the mediconfuse the works of these very

of
"
dissimilar writers.
The Venice
liber
edition
1485
begins
Incipit
primus Joannis Gerson cangellarii [sic] parisienDe imitatione Christi et de contemptu omnium sis. vanitatum mundi." The second book begins "In:
cipit
secundus.
De
:
interna conversatione."
"
The
Devota
third
book begins
ad animam fidelem."
De interna Christi The fourth begins

:
locutione
"

exhortatio ad sacram corporis Christi
123
communionem,"
et
and ends,
Sacramento
"
explicit
altaris.
liber
quartus
ultimus
de
Gerson cancellarii devotum et utile mundi parisiensis, de contemptu opusculum finit mcccc.lxxxv per Dionysium et
Johannis
Peregrinum ejus sotium bononienses.
Deo
Gratias.
Amen."
perhaps a matter of controversial interest to from a manupoint out that this book was printed de Advocatis, script curiously akin to the Codex
It is
which gave
futile
rise to
the
as
still
living
controversy
to
the
but extremely authorship of an

I
imaginary thirteenth-century Abbot of Vercelli.
am
inclined to think that this edition
was
actually
printed from that manuscript, with small changes necessitated by the condition of the text and the This Venice edition contains views of the editor. the titles of the second and fourth books used in the
Aronensis manuscript.
"
The second book
in
the
manuscript begins
versatione."
The
ad
Incipit liber de interna con" de devota fourth book is headed

:
exhortatione
sacram
titles
munionem."
differ,
The
corporis Christi comof the first and third books
but the likenesses are very striking, and it is allowable to conjecture some relationship between
the
Gerson
edition
and
I
the
so-called
Gersen
manuscript.
The
at
next edition that

It
notice
is
one of unusual
interest.
was published by Jacobus Britannicus It begins with Brescia, on June 6th, 1485.
124
the usual
THOMAS A KEMPIS
table
of
contents.
This
is
followed
by a unique prefatory devout address or sermon, and then follows the following curious statement, which proves that the controversy as to the authorship was already acute in the late fifteenth " century Incipit opus Beati Bernard! saluberrimum de imitatione Christi et contemptu mundi quod attribuitur." Parisiensi Gerson cancellario Johanni This is apparently printed from the same manuscript The second as the Venice edition of the same year. " the book is entitled, " De interna conversatione " third De interna Christi locutione ad book, " animam fidelem and the fourth book, " Devota exhortatio ad sacram corporis Christi communionem.
: : :
Vox
Christi.
."
John de Westfalia's
in
edition,
issued at
:
Louvain
liber
same year, begins " Incipit probably primus Johannis Gerson cancellarii parisiensis.
the
De
imitatione Christi et de contemptu omnium vanitatum mundi." The books have the above titles, and
Gerson cancellarii parisiensis de contemptu mundi devotum et utile opusculum finit. Impressum per me Johannem
the
volume ends:
"Johannis
de Westfalia." From Louvain we pass to Cologne, where a curious little undated edition of the first book only,
without any indication of authorship, appeared proThe table of chapters is followed by bably in i486.
the phrase " incipiunt ammoniciones ad spiritualem " vitam utiles," and the book concludes, expliciunt

ammoniciones ad
oracias."
125
spiritualem
vitam
utiles
Deo
From Cologne we
what
liber
cross the Alps to Venice, where seems to be the third Venetian edition of the i486.
It
Imitation appeared in
"
begins:
Incipit
primus Joannis gerson
cancellarii
parisiensis.
imitatione Christi et de contemptu omnium vanitatum mundi." The books have the usual titles. The
De
last is also
named
as usual
"
de sacramento
altaris."
The volume concludes with Gerson's De Meditatione The colophon runs as follows: "Johannis Cordis.
Gerson
libri
felici
cancellarii parisiensis
quatuor una
cum
de contemptu mundi tractatu de meditatione cordis

:
numine
finiunt.
Impressum Venetiis impressis

is, I
Francisci de madiis m.cccc.lxxxvi."
The Argentine
dated edition
in
edition of 1487
think, the first
which the work

is,
is
attributed to a
doubt that however, very In this the Augsburg edition may be dated 1471. edition we have on the fly-leaf, in bold black type, " Tractatus de imitatione christi cum tractatulo de
Kempis.
There
little
meditatione
cordis."
"
This again disposes of the
De Imitatione Christi" was theory that the title In not given to the collected work before 1494.
this
edition, after
the very
as follows:
full
table of contents,
the
work begins
"
fratris
Thome
primus de Kempis canonici regularis ordinis

:
Incipit liber
The usual titles are prefixed to sancti Augustini." " the books. This treatise ends explicit liber quartus et ultimus de sacramento altaris." The volume con-
126
THOMAS A KEMPIS
"
:
eludes as follows
imitatione christi
Thome de Kempis de de contemptu mundi devotum et utile opusculum finit feliciter. Incipit tractatus de meditatione cordis magistri Johannis gerson.
Fratris
:
et
"
Tractatulus venerabilis magistri Johannis Gerson

:
de meditatione cordis
Argentine
impressus
par
finit
Martinum
feliciter,"
flach
Anno domino
m.cccc.lxxxvii.
another edition of 1487, but this has no On the fly-leaf we read in printed place of issue.^ " bold type, Tractatus de ymitatione cristi cum tractais
There
tulo
de meditatione cordis."
to "
There follows a
reader.
full
table of contents with folio references
a rare con-
venience
begins
:
the
i.
mediaeval
The work
Liber
Tractatus aureus et perutilis de
perfecta ymitatione Christi et vero mundi contemptu." The last book is named as usual " Explicit liber
:
quartus de sacramento altaris. Incipit tractatus de meditatione cordis." The volume ends " Tractatus aureus et per utilis de perfecta ymitatione Christi et
:
vero mundi contemptu

cordis finiunt feliciter
cum
tractatulo de meditatione
anno mcccclxxxvii."
John Zeiner published an edition in 1487. There Museum copy a manuscript note in an early hand on the fly-leaf There is a table of
is
in the British
contents with folio references. The treatise begins " Liber i. Tractatus aureus et perutilis de perfecta
:
ymitatione Christi et vero mundi contemptu," and
ends
''explicit liber
^
Quartus de sacramento
Museum,
I.
altaris,
British
A. 9267.

Incipit
127
tractatus
:
de
meditatione
cordis."
The
volume ends
"tractatus aureus et perutilis de per-
fecta ymitatione Christi et vero mundi contemptu tractatulo de meditatione cordis finiunt feliciter
Cum
Anno, lxxxvii." Per Johannem zeiner Ulment. with the This is identical previous edition with the
addition of the
name
of John Zeiner, of Ulm, and
they are successive editions from the same press.^ A fourth Venice edition was published in 1488. In the British Museum copy there is a Latin verse
on the
fly-leaf in
an old hand.
have "Joannis Gerson de vanitatum mundi." This is followed by a table of chapters, and then stuck on a further fly-leaf is a
tiny
we omnium contemptu
the next leaf
On
woodcut of the Crucifixion. The work begins "Incipit liber primus Joannis Gerson cancellarii parisiensis, de imitatione Christi et de contemptu omnium " vanitatum mundi," and ends explicit liber quartus et ultimus de sacramento altaris. Incipit tractatus
:
:
de
meditatione
:
cordis
Johannis
Gerson."
The
volume ends
:
"Johannis Gerson cancellarii pariside contemptu mundi libri quatuor uno cum ensis tractatu de meditatione cordis felici numine finiunt. Impressum Venetiis arte et impensis Bernardini de
Benalus mcccclxxxviii." The Milan edition of 1488 is of some interest. The treatise begins with a rubric " Incipit liber
:
primus Joannis Gerson cancelarii parisiensis.

1
De
John Zeiner also issued
in
the
same year a German
translation of
the Imitation.
128
THOMAS A KEMPIS
omnium vanitatum
tractatus
"
:
imitatione Christi et de contemptu
mundi," and ends de Sacramento

"
explicit liber quartus et ultimus
altaris.
Incipit
de
The volume Gerson Cancellarii Johannis parisiensis de contemptu mundi libri quatuor una cum tractato de meditatione cordis felici numine finiunt. Impressum Mediolani impensis Leonardi Pachel de
meditatione cordis Johannis Gerson."
ends,
Alamania.
mcccclxxxviii
mensis
Julii."
"
:
Then
follows the index of chapters. The Paris edition of 1489 begins

tione Christi
Incipit liber
De ImitaJohannis Gerson cancellarii parisiensis. et de contemptu omnium vanitatum " mundi," and ends explicit liber quartus et ultimus
:
de Sacramento
Parisiensis
:
altaris.
Johannis Gerson cancellarii
contemptu mundi devotum et Laus omnipotenti Deo. opusculum finit. Sequitur tractatus de Meditatione Cordis a Magistro johanne de Gersonno." This is followed by a Table of Chapters of both works, and the volume ends " Liber Magistri Johannis Gerson Cancellarii Parisiensi
de
utile
:
mundi
de Imitatione Christi et contemptu omnium vanitatum una cum de meditatione cordis unicuique
:
relisfioso
ac devoto necessarius.
Finit feliciter im-
pressus parisius
per Higman Almanum.
Invicoclausi
scolas decre-
brunelli ad intersignium
leonum prope
quadringentesimo octuagesimo nono, die vero decima octava januarii." The Augsburg edition of 1488 calls for some notice.
It
torum
anno domino
millesimo
"
begins
Incipit liber
primus Johannis Gerson

cancellarii
129
de Imitatione Chrlsti et de " and ends contemptu omnium vanitatum mundi liber et ultimus de sacramento "explicit quartus altaris Johannis Gerson cancellarii parisiensis de conparisiensis
; :
temptu mundi devotum et utile opusculum impresium Auguste arte et impensis Erhardi ratdolt viri solertis anno domini mcccclxxxviii. sequitur tractatus de Meditatione cordis a magistro Johanna de Gerson. ..."
The Lyon
it
attributes
edition of 1489 the work to a

:
is
very important, since
Kempis.
On
the
fly-
we read in bold type "Tractatus de imitatione Christi cum tractatulo de meditatione cordis." After the Table of Chapters we have " incipit liber primus
leaf
fratris Thome de Kempis canonici regularis ordinis sancti Augustini de imitatione Christi et de contemptu
omnium vanitatum mundi."

"explicit
altaris.
liber
quartus
et
Fratris
:
Thome
treatise ends de sacramento de Kempis de imitatione

:
The
ultimus
Christi
utile
deque opusculum
contemptu
finit feliciter.
mundi
devotum
. .
et
Incipit tractatus de
.
Meditatione cordis magistri Johannis Gerson. Tractatulus venerabilis magistri Johannis Gerson
de
Meditatione
cordis
artis
Lugduni
impressus
per
Johannem
octobris
Trechzel
salutis
impressorise
anno nostrae
mcccclxxxix. die vero
magistrum xi. mensis
finit feliciter."
The Argentine edition of 1489 has on the fly-leaf the words, " Thomas de Kempis De imitatione christi, de contemptu omnium vanitatum mundi.
I
130
THOMAS A KEMPIS
interna
De
conversatione.
De
Interna
locutione
Christ! ad
animam
fidelem
cum quanta
reverentia
Christus est suscipiendus. Item Johannes Gerson de meditatione cordis." A very curious woodcut is printed on the other side of the The fly-leaf.
work begins
fratris
"
:
Thome
Liber primus. Incipit Hber primus de Kempis canonici regularis ordinis

:
sancti
Augustini
De
imitatione
Christi
"
;
et
de
and ends: contemptu omnium vanitatum mundi " Hber ultimus et de sacramento quartus expHcit altaris. Fratris Thome de Kempis de imitatione christi, et de contemptu mundi devotum et utile
opusculum
finit
feliciter.
Incipit
tractatus
.
de
.
.
meditatione cordis magistri Johannis gerson. Tractatulus venerabilis magistri Johannis Gerson
de meditatione cordis Argentinus impressus. Anno domini m.cccc.lxxxix. finit feliciter," The Paris edition of 1491 has an illustrated flyleaf with the words,
et
Gerson de Imitatione Christi de Meditatione cordis." This is the first case in which we have the works definitely associated in The book begins " Incipit liber primus this way.
:
"
De ImitaJohannis Gerson Cancellarii parisiensis. tione Christi et de contemptu omnium vanitatum

mundi"; and ends "explicit liber quartus et ultimus de sacramento altaris. Johannis Gerson Cancellarii mundi devotum et utile parisiensis de contemptu finit. Sequitur tractatus de Meditatione opusculum
:
cordis ab
eodem Magistro Johanne de Gersono."

runs
"
:
The colophon
completum
est
opusculum
BcYfon êimitationthziM*
Bttyc meditdtionc cozdis*
X^ S IT <O^MQl1gH<^@
Iiri.K
\)\:
I'ACK OF THE PARIS KDITION OK THK TRKAI'ISE IMITATIONE CHRISTI" ISSUED BY THE liROTHEKS
MAKNKK
(rilK
IN
14itl.
DKVICK OF ENCiUII.UKkT, |KAN,
.\N1)
(loOlCKKOY 1)K MAK'NICF.)

exoratumque
vico cithare.
Parisii
131
In
per Philippum Pygouchet.
In locagiis collegii vulgariter nuncupati de Dainville Anno domini millesimo quadragentesimo
nonogesimo primo die vero ultima mensis
martii."
An
origin, "
edition of 1492, imprinted without place of

is
interesting.
On
the fly-leaf
is
printed
tractatus
de
Ymitatione Christi cum tractatulo

cordis."
de
"
meditatione
The
work
begins
tione Cristi et vero

"
Tractatus aureus et perutilis de perfecta Ymita" mundi contemptu and ends

;
explicit Incipit
liber
tractatus
. , .
quartus de sacramento altaris. de Meditatione cordis Johannis
Gerson.
Tractatus
aureus
et
et
perutilis
de
perfecta Ymitatione
Christi
vero
mundi con-
temptu cum tractatulo de Meditatione cordis finiunt It will be feliciter anno domini mcccclxxxxii." noticed that in this edition, while the Meditation of the Heart is attributed to its author Gerson, no mention is made of the authorship of the Imitation. It is clear from this that there was a doubt at this time as to the authorship. It was no longer possible
to
assert
the
identity
7"<^^
associated works
tion
two hnitation and The Meditaof authorship
of
the
of the Heart.
edition
1493 is practically of 1489. edition The Argentine only real difference is the abbreviations of Latin It is of course an important edition, for it words.
identical with the
definitely states that a Kempis is the author of the Imitatioiz : "Incipit liber primus fratris Thome de
The Luneborch
of
132
THOMAS A KEMPIS
canonici regularis ordinis sancti Augustini." includes The Meditatio7i of the Heart
:
Kempis
The volume
" and concludes Tractatulus venerabilis Magistri de Gerson meditatione cordis Luneborch Johannis impressus per me Johannem Luce, anno domini
Mccccxciii., XXII. die mensis maij finit feliciter." Another a Kempis edition of about this date is both
undated and without place of issue (1496?).^ It is entitled "Tractatus fratris Thome de Kempis canonici reo-ularis ordinis Sancti Augfustini de imitatione
Christi
et
de contemtu omnium vanitatum mundi.

alii
Cum tractatulo johannis Gerson de Meditatione cordis

et
complures
tractatus pulcri."
This
is
a kind of
expansion of the Argentine and Luneborch editions. The Imitation in this edition ends " Fratris Thome
:
de Kempis de imitatione Christi et de contemptu
mundi devotum opusculum
finit."
is
The Venice
In the British
edition of 1496
of
is
some
interest.
Museum copy
"
:
there
a loose fly-leaf
bearing the words
Joannis Gerson de contemptu

It
omnium vanitatum
belong to the book.
larii
mundi."
It will
appears
not
to
the ending of the volume
"
:
quote Joannis Gerson cance-
be
sufficient to
uno
parisiensis de contemptu mundi libri quattuor cum tractatu de Meditatione cordis felici numine
finiunt.
Impressum
venetiis.
mccccxcvi. die ultimo
Januarii." The Paris edition of 1496 is more important. It Above has a fly-leaf with a very curious woodcut.
^
I.
A. 10955 (Magdeburg, or Thanner at Leipsic
(?),
Hain, 9081).

the woodcut are the words
:
133
"de
imitatione Cristi et
cellarii parisiensis,"
contemptu mundi magistri Johannis Gerson canand below it the printer's name,
On the reverse side of the Georgius Mittelhus. is another woodcut fly-leaf representing the Magi
worshipping.
The work opens

explicit
liber
in
common form
et
and ends
"
:
quartus
ultimus
de
altaris. Johannis Gerson cancellarii de parisiensi contemptu mundi devotum et utile opusculum finit. Sequitur tractatus de Meditatione cordis ab eodem magistro Johanne de Gersono."
sacramentis
work of printing was Mittelhus at Paris on March completed by George

states that the
ist,
The colophon
1496.
Florentine edition of 1497 bears on the fly" leaf the words Johannis Gerson de contemptu
:
The
omnium vanitatum mundi." It begins in the " common form: liber primus Incipit Johannis
Gerson
cancellarii parisiensis,"
and ends as usual

It
with the "de Meditatione cordis."
by Master John Peter de Maganza
at Florence,
was completed on
November loth, 1497. The Paris edition of 1498 has a fly-leaf with the words " de Imitatione Christi," and a woodcut of the Crucifixion. It besfins in the
usual form
"
:
Incipit liber
primus Johannis Gerson
cancellarii parisiensis de Imitatione Christi," and ends with the " de Meditatione cordis ab eodem
magistro Johanne de Gersono." The new century opens with an a Kempis edition issued in 1501 at It follows the common form. On the Cologne.
134
THOMAS A KEMPIS
:
words " Liber de Imitatione Christi cum tractatu de Meditatione cordis." The edition contains a woodcut in dupHcate, and ends with the
fly-leaf are the
Httle tract,
It
Doctrina pulcra pro

"
:
religiosis et solitariis.
begins in the usual form (substituting a
Kempis
for
Gerson)
incipit liber
primus egregii
.
viri
Thome
de Kempis de Imitatione Christi. ." There is, " a in variant the however, ending explicit liber de Imitatione Christi ab quartus et ultimus
.
:
.
egregio viro to find the
de Kempis editi." It is curious word compositus used with respect to
Thoma
Gerson and editus with respect to a Kempis. It seems to reflect a feeling that a Kempis was a compiler and Gerson an author. The literary world seems to have felt that if Gerson wrote the work he composed it, but that if a Kempis wrote it he compiled it. I have referred above to some twenty-six Indeissues of between the Imitation 1470 and pendent
1
501.
were
in all about,
issued.
During the period of thirty years there and probably above, eighty editions The editions given above are, however,
probably representative, as they are those of One which copies exist in the British Museum.
and twenty of these editions have some author named. One edition is referred to St Bernard, with Seven Jean Gerson as a possible alternative. editions Augsburg, the two Argentine editions, Lyon, Luneborch, Cologne, and one unplaced and undated (Leipsic?) attribute the work to Thomas a But these places are all west of the Alps Kempis.

and comparatively unimportant.
135
On
the other hand,
thirteen editions (independent of the Brescia edition that names Gerson as an alternative to St Bernard)
attribute the
work
to Gerson.
These include
five
editions issued at Venice, four at Paris, one each

at Louvain, Milan, Florence,
and Augsburg.
The
great centres of culture and literary movement with one voice rejected a Kempis and adopted Gerson.
A book was not necessary to make inquiry. and theologian by Gerson the famous chancellor would sell, but the name of Thomas a Kempis The same was no voucher of literary merit.
It
The principles did not apply in the small towns. book was printed there because of a demand for a
and character of the In such a case it was worth while to Imitatio7i. The Augsburg ascertain who was the true author. edition of 147 1 gave this information, and it was emphatically repeated in the volume that issued from
work of the
particular type
Nuremberg
lected
in
works
1494, giving to the world the colincluding the hnitatioii of Thomas
a Kempis.
The
given on
clude
in
folios Ixxxiiii.
Notabilia concerning the Canon and Ixxxv. of the edition contractatus scripsit et dictavit quo modo intitulantur vel
"
:
Et quia multos
et
:
vita,
pauci sciunt
ideo tabulam de ejus tractatibus et libris hie intitulare et scribere intendo ut omnes qui legunt
vocantur
vel audiunt possunt scire quot sunt." The Registrum gives "Tituli operum librorum venerabilis patris
Thome
de Kempis," including of course the four
136
THOMAS A KEMPIS
Imitatio7i.
It is
books of the
that this
unfortunate, however,
great edition of the works should have introduced into the volume writings attributed to Gerson and to Gerard Groote. The fourth book
of the hnitation
immediately followed by the De Meditatione cordis of Gerson, without any textual break. It is not, however, claimed for a Kempis. The text runs ''explicit liber quartus de sacramento
is
:
altaris.
Incipit
tractatus
de
meditatione
cordis
Johannis Gerson."
"
The
tract is
It
as part of the fourth book.^

Christi
almost regarded ends as follows
Tractatus aureus et perutilis de perfecta imitatione et vero mundi contemptu cum tractaculo
finiunt feliciter."
de meditatione cordis
Since the
editor of the authorised version of the works could
be so foolish as to introduce a work known throughout Europe as from Gerson's pen into intimate and
physical connection with a
work of doubtful author-
ship, no one could complain at the controversy being If the works were obscured. inseparable, the Meditation of the Heart was entitled to import its
undoubted
Imitation.
authorship
into
in
the
Nothing
is
fact
was done
title-page of the to break
down
it
the French tradition in favour of Gerson,
and
that tradition
is
as strong as ever to-day, though
impossible to bring forward in its favour a or literary single argument based upon the internal
evidence of the Imitation When such a tradition

1
itself.
is
abroad,
it is
hard to
kill.
It fills folio
27a to
folio
2Sb
in the 1494 edition.

It
137
rapidly
extended from the Continent, though,
we shall see in another chapter, England had her own tradition as to authorship, and had in fact possessed, when the first English edition was issued
as
perhaps sixty years an English version, But the of the Following of Christ. extant, tradition of the French and Italian press was too
in 1502-3, for
still
strong for any local tradition.

in
So when Dr Atkinson
1502 translated into English the Imitation from a
manuscript of the Musica Ecclesiastica type he only translated three books, and this fact settles the the printer gave Gerson's name to the work. type
The colophon
"
to the
503 edition runs as follows
Here endeth the thyrde boke of Jhon Gerson Emprynted in London by Rycharde Pynson, in Flete strete at the Sygne of the George, at the commaundement and instaunce of the ryght noble and excellent prynces Margarete moder to our soverain lorde
:
Countesse of Rych mount and Derby. The yere of our lord MD.iii. The. xxvii. day of June." Atkinson had evidently no manuscript containing the fourth book. As has been shown above, such manuscripts are very rare in
Kynge Henry
the.
VII. and
England.
He
clearly
had
to use a manuscript of
the Musica Ecclesiastica type containing only three But the reading public were aware of the books.
fourth book,
and Princess Margaret herself eave the
public an English version, not from the Latin, but from an early French version. The fourth book
"was
translated oute of frenche into Englisshe in
138
THOMAS A KEMPIS
fourme and maner ensuinge. The yere of our lord god MDiiii." by the Princess, and was pubHshed in the same year by Pynson. He appears to have bound up some copies with Dr Atkinson's translation of the first three books issued the previous year. Our present point, however, is that the whole work was issued under the name of Gerson and the French tradition imposed upon the English
printers.
I
shall
show
later
that the tradition in

biblio-
no way affected the position of the English

philes
who
persistently
attributed
to
the
first
three
books of the Imitation
Walter Hilton.
MASTER WALTER HILTON AND THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE IMITATION
npHE
-*-
controversy as to the authorship of the Imitation Tractatus aureus et perutiHs

for all practical
has
now been
purposes at rest for
some
Dr Hirsche's discovery in thirty years. that work is the written in a species of rhythm 1873
peculiar to Thomas a Kempis was the last step in an ancient argument based on internal evidence that
has at last overwhelmed even those
who
are
still
troubled by the really weighty claims of Jean Le Charlier de Gerson, Doctor Christianissimus. Few
to-day are so critically poor as to do reverence to that Ignisfatuus of theological literature, Gersen of
other putative authors have been ruled out of court. It is true that the claims of
Vercelli.
All
arguable, but the weight of manuscript evidence with respect to the final passage of chapter fifty (or chapter fifty-five if that method
still
Saint Bernard are
of division
against him
adopted) of Book III. bears so heavily no one to-day will adopt the case of the Saint. Indeed the Imitatio7i is so clearly a
is
that
philosophical
in attributing
phenomenon
it
of the late fourteenth or

is critical
early fifteenth century, that there

to a
weakness
X39
much
earlier age.
Nevertheless
140
THOMAS A KEMPIS
controversialists
must bear in mind that the work was attributed to Saint Bernard in the mid fifteenth century, and that his claims received a volume of French support that at one time threatened seriously to compete with the fascination that Gerson the Most Christian Doctor exercised over those engaged in finding authors for the anonymous works of that
;
day. Ludolph of Saxony, the Carthusian Ubertinus de Casalis, head of the " Spiritualists," and named
Peter Rainaluzzi of Mystical Antichrist afterwards the Corbario, Anti-Pope Nicholas V., emerged from the mists of the early fourteenth cen;
"
The
"
and with them may be dismissed Pope Innocent III., whose work De contemptM ?nundi was for a time confused with the Imitation when the latter work was copied or
tury, only to
;
be speedily forgotten
printed under the former

for
title.
Johannes de Canabaco belongs to a different class, he was an author of the fifteenth century and
qualities
possessed personal
of
consistent
with
the
authorship current in Europe at the date

tracts
the
Imitation.
His
works were
the golden
when
making, and not only do we find them in the library of the good Duke Humphrey, but in the monastery where a Kempis laboured. But there is no evidence that he wrote the Imitation, and his chief title to fame may well be that his Consolations of Divinity was one of the "little books" that
were
in the
Thomas read in the "little nooks" at Mount St Agnes. The case for John a Kempis, the elder brother, was
'
lilt
/biditoomfoxmf!t^
mtnte î/^ntai-c./m
i'CiJ6^fttiliteHrc'Amd<r
tft </f%
nt &C0 cmni'<>ij
"
<=t
mot<S mtitKiiu fi
to
ma$is fzntivctom
tii^p5</)<f fiuKTcnvtia
A&fconhtiu lit iimtta m

^tntc^jhicftiitttxSH
^^
END OF THE INDEX OF THE FIRST BOOK AND PART OF THE FIRST CHAPTER OF THE FIRST BOOK OF THE TREATISE CALLED "MUSICA ECCLESlASTICA:" FROM MS. 475 IN THE LAMBETH PALACE LIBRARY. THIS MS. CONSISTS OF THE FIR.ST THREE BOOKS OF THE TREATISE " DE IMITATIONE CHRISTI" .\ND BELONGS TO THE MID-FIFTEENTH CENTURY.
ON THE FLY-LE.\F ARCHBISHOP SANCROFT
(?)
HAS ATTRIBUTED THE WORK TO WALTER HILTON.
AUTHORSHIP OF THE IMITATION
141
likewise based on grounds that have Httle to do with Three names are left. The Imitation evidence.
was produced, written, compiled, put it how we will, by Thomas a Kempis, by Jean de Gerson, or by the one man yet unmentioned Walter Hilton. It is true that Walter Hilton, an Augustinian Canon like a
Kempis, is dismissed as summarily as the rest by Mr Samuel Kettlewell in his pleasing and invaluable work upon the authorship of the De Iniitatio7ie
Orz-y/e published in 1877. Mr Kettlewell, however, has not considered this aspect of the general problem
with the care that
it
deserves, and in addition to
inaccuracies that might perhaps have been avoided, he has not placed before the reader all the available
be therefore of interest to English readers to re-examine Walter Hilton's claims. It is

evidence.
It will
indeed desirable to do so from another point of As I have said, the controversy has now been view.
at
has been at rest long The period of repose threatens to exceed enough. the limits of time laid down by precedent. This
rest for thirty years.
It
controversy has now in one shape or another interested the world of literature and moved the
world of theology for more than four centuries and a half, with occasional pauses or breathing intervals such as that in which we now find ourselves. It is
time in the interests of literary and theological polemics for the great cause to be re-opened, though
are not likely to find again at large the superb and unreasonable loyalty of a Constantine Cajetan.
we
142
THOMAS A KEMPIS
Nevertheless the modern Shakespeare-Bacon logomachy shows us that there are spirits abroad
who
will
risk
all
literary justice.
on behalf of what they consider The cause of Walter Hilton is a

of Francis
more worthy one than the cause

for while
it is
Bacon
absurd on a priori grounds to suppose that Bacon wrote the plays of Shakespeare, it is most reasonable on a priori grounds to suppose that
Hilton wrote three of the four famous devotional treatises of Thomas a Kempis, Though it would,
opinion, be extremely rash, or extremely patriotic, to assert that the evidence is capable of enthroning Hilton and reducing a Kempis to the
in
my
respectable level of his other admirable works, yet
it
seems to me clear that the evidence does create a

literary
problem of some magnitude that deserves

:
That problem consideration at the hands of experts. what was the relationship between is simply this
the Imitation and the English school of theological and mystics whose work survives enthusiasts dimly for the serious minded reader of to-day in
Hilton's
Ladder of Spiritual Perfection.
So
far as
the general reader goes, Hilton's name in literature is Mr Saintsbury has not thought fit to give forgotten.
him a place in his gallery of English authors despite the number and the literary interest of his reputed works and his great position in mediaeval theological
literature.
one
English
forgotten, we need not expect anybut German scholars and heroic editors of early texts to remember William Flete, living
If
he
is

in
143
1380,
when English mediaeval

;
scholarship was
approaching its height William Exmeuse, Richard Rolle de Ampulla, John Hilton, Walter Shirlaw, Lowys de Fontibus of Cambridge, John Pery, and
others.
It is
not
my
trate into the
difficult literary
present purpose to attempt to peneproblems that these
It will be sufficient English mystic writers present. than has to state a little more fully yet been stated the evidence upon which those who wish to advocate
the English authorship of the Imitation will have to The question was first raised in England in a rely.
definite controversial "
form
in the
was
published
The
Christian
year 1707, when Pattern, or the
Imitation of lesus Christ, Vol. ii. Beine the o-enuine works of Thomas a Kempis. Containing four books,
viz.
:
I.
The
sighs of a penitent soul, or a treatise of true compunction.
II.
short Christian Directory.

spiritual exercises.
spiritual entertainments, or the soliloquy of the soul.
III.
IV.
Of Of
Translated from
the
original
Latin,
mended by George Hickes, D.D.,

prefix'd,
and recomto which is
large account of the author's life and writings." This book is a singular production and worthy of It is recommended by that very learned nonstudy. juror George Hickes, sometime Dean of Worcester,
144
THOMAS A KEMPIS
The is a guarantee of its literary value. account of the controversy as to the authorship is quite admirably done, and the life of a Kempis is The curious point is the from the original sources.
and that
text.
Mr Kettlewell seems to me to assume, as one who had not closely perused the text might any assume, that it is a translation of the four books of
nothing of the sort, and this might perhaps have been anticipated from the Mr use of the word "genuine" on the title-page.
the Imitation.
In fact
it is
Kettlewell, assuming,
think, that the text
was a
translation of the Imitation, read carefully all that is stated with respect to Hilton, and particularly
the
assertion
in
areument
end of the book that the favour of Hilton "will no wise invaliat
the
date the authority of the blessed Saint [a Kempis], from whose more certainly genuine works the
in English." In fact present volume is compiled the anonymous author, Dr Lee, compiled a new Imitation from the undoubted works of a Kempis,
the belief that the Augustinian Canon did not write the De hnitatione Christi. It is singular that Mr Kettlewell should have been
in
However, that no on the ground partly

misled by
Dr
Lee.
partly on this ground, specialist believes in
Hilton (a dangerous form of argument), and partly on the erroneous assumption that Hilton died in 1433, Mr Kettlewell dismisses the case with these words
"
It is probable that Walter Hilton had introduced the 'de Imitatione,' for it was beginning to be well

known
in his day,
145
its
and
this
might be the cause of
being attributed to him, since the author's name has not been put to the book." Had Mr Kettlewell
thought
it
of painful research
desirable to extend his well-known powers to the personality of Hilton,
he would have found that this writer died on March 24th 1395, and that therefore if the Imitation "was beginning to be well known" in England in Hilton's
day, the
work was
fully,
it
certainly not written
by Thomas
with
the
Kempis.
However,
will
before
dealing
question
be convenient to consider the

,
views of the writer of i ']0^ who says, after considering with admirable judgment the claims of eleven
candidates for authorship, " but after all there remains another, who has not yet been taken notice of, as
I And this is an Englishman, and find, by any. an eminent light of religion in his day I mean Walter Hilton^ The writer goes on to state the
:
facts
as to
Hilton set forth by John Pits in his
account of illustrious English writers published in Paris in 1 6 19. Pits is erroneous in his facts. Hilton
was not a Carthusian, he did not live in the house at Sheen called Bethlehem, he did not flourish in But our editor, in spite of or because of the 1433. errors of Pits, has little doubt of Hilton's claim, Mr Kettlewell adopts the same errors, and on those We must consider the errors, bases his refutation. on which the of 1707 came to his editor grounds conclusion, for these facts were before Mr Kettlewell. The editor publishes a letter from the Hon. Charles
K
146
THOMAS A KEMPIS
between the two as
libraries
Hatton, dated December 2nd 1706, which refers to a

discussion
to
Hilton's claim,
Hatton
the
states that fruitless search has

for
been made
treatise
in
University
it
Hilton's
De
Musica
the
Ecclesiastica.
In default of the manuscript
he thinks
desirable no longer to
for
grounds have been the genuine author of that justly celebrated pious book De Imitatione Christi, which hath most generally been ascribed to Thomas a
believing
"Walter
delay stating Hilton to
Kempis." " Hatton goes on as follows Nay, more colourable may be alledg'd in behalf of pretences Walter Hilton, than have been produc'd in favour of Thomas a Kempis, whose justification to be Author of the book de Imitatione Christi depends chiefly on the authority of an M.S. thereof in which it is not said that he is the Author, but only
:
Finitus
et
completus
in
A. Kemp,
A.D. 14.41, per Mamis Thomae Monte S. Agnet. prope Zwoll, which
if he had only transcrib'd of Pitseus his Relationes, out Now it. apparent Historicce de Rebus Anglicis, and from the Authority
might have been asserted,

it is
of other
Authors, that Walter Hilton flourish'd before the date of that M.S., for he was famed for
his
eminent Piety and learning

like
a.d. 1433,
and
'tis
to
be observ'd, that the
strain of devotion with
that in the book de Imitatione Christi, runs through his highly esteemed pious Treatise stil'd Scala Christianae Perfectionis, of which Walter Hilton is

:
147
undoubtedly the Author and tho' that be the only book I cou'd ever meet with compos'd by him yet
Joan. Jacobus Frisius, in his Epito^ne BiblotheccB Gesnerianae and our countryman Pitseus (as un-
doubtedly Theodorus Pitreius and others who give an account of the Carthusian Writers, tho' I have
not seen any of them) do enumerate several other devout books writ by him, and among them one de Musica Ecclesiasticd, which begins Qui stil'd,
sequitur
" in
I
shall
me non ambulat. now only add,

with
that
some years
Obadiah
conversation
Mr
ago, being Walker, he
happened to cite an Expression out of his favourite book (as he term'd it) de Imitatione Christie omitting the name of T. a Kempis, to whom 'tis most commonly ascrib'd, which occasion'd a discourse about the eminent controversie Who was the author thereof; and upon my remarking to him, that Joan Jac. Frisius in his epitome of Gesners Pitseus renumerating the BibliotheccE, and Joan. works of Walter Hilton make mention of a book compos'd by him, stil'd, de Musica Ecclesiasticd, and recites the first words thereof. Qui sequitur me non ambulat, etc., which are the initial words of the book de Imitatione Christi, and enquiring of him whether he had ever taken any notice thereof in those Authors, he not only told me he had, but did positively aver to me that he had seen, perus'd and compar'd the M.S. of Walter Hilton, de Musica Ecclesiasticd, with the book de Imitatione Christi,
148
THOMAS A KEMPIS
ascrib'd to
it
most generally
that throughout,
Thomas a Kempis, and
exactly agreed therewith, abating
some literal Errata, and some few Words and Expressions which did not in the least vary the
Sense.
Whilst we were thus discoursing, some Persons, strangers to me, intervening, with whom Mr Walker declared he had some private concern, I left him, and to my great regret, never had an opportunity of seeing him afterwards, which if I had, I should not
have M.S.
fail'd
enquire of him, where he saw that What was the date of Walter Hilton ?
to
thereof.-^
And
if
he cou'd inform
"
me where
it
might now be found ? In fact two hundred years ago Mr Hatton stated the exact problem that we have to solve, if it is When our friend was on the very solvable, to-day.
brink of the great discovery the intervention of persons of importance played its wonted part in
literature.
However,
mind.
Mr
Hatton was
satisfied
in
his
own
Walker, the Master of learned and distinguished University sufficient and his was Oxford, positive College, averment was supported by the more or less respectable authority of Pitseus, Pitreius, and Frisius. As we shall see directly the case as stated by Hatton
;
The
evidence of
Mr Obadiah
is
but a bald
recital
of
much
stronger case.
Hatton's
correspondent
did what
he could.
He
wrote to Oxford for confirmation, and received the following statement

:

"
149
According
to
your
order
we have
consulted
Theod. catalogue of the writings of Wal. Hilton he reckons his book de Ecclesiastica
Pitreius, in his
Musica^ and cites for his authority Possevinus and

Simlerus.
We
consulted the Titles of the treatises
of this latter contained in our publick library, and of finding nothing that promised any account
we had recourse to Possevinus, who attriHilton butes Musica Ecclesiastica to Hilton Possevin's book was published about the year 1603, under the Title
;
;
of Apparatus Sacer Ecclesiasticorum Scriptorum. As for the manuscripts there are none either in Merton
or Lincoln College according to the printed catalogue. In Maedalen Colleo-e we found one entitled, Musica
Ecclesiastica, the
same with the book De
Iniitatione
Christi, but ascribed to
no particular author.
The
Bodleian library has two manuscripts with the same One contains only the title oi Musica Ecclesiastica. the other first book de Imitat. Christi and no more
:
contains the whole book de hnitat.

first
etc.
except the
chapter, with a
second,
which
are
of the beginning of the wanting, but the Author is

little
mentioned
in neither of
them.
As
for the birth
and
death of Hilton, neither Possevin nor Petrius say anything of it only the former has this expression,
;
Aiunt vero eum
floruisse Henrico sexto anglorum which Petreius Rege repeats out of him with this licet Cartusiam in qua vixerit, non addition,
exprimant." The conclusion finally
come
to
by the anonymous
150
writer
THOMAS A KEMPIS
(who is now identified as Dr Francis Lee) of Hickes thought so highly was, "there is Httle doubt but that Hikon must have been the Author, if not of the whole Four Books at least of one of them," " but that the work as we have it was compil'd, Thomas a and Kempis. This improv'd" by digested is of the nature of a feminine ending and unworthy of the masculine force of Mr Obadiah Walker. However, in an Advertisement at the end of the
whom
volume we are
told that there are "several other
arguments yet behind," and though they are not set out it is clear that the anonymous friend of Dr Hickes had a full belief, which he was afraid to express, in the authorship of Walter Hilton. This was the evidence before Mr Kettlewell, and
by referring to further manuscripts entitled Musica Ecclesiastica^ including one at Cambridge, which is a fifteenth century English
he supplemented
it
version
or
rendering of
the
in
Imitation.
As we
have seen he rejected as

of the
Eno-lishman.
No
duty bound the claims doubt he was rio-ht in
SO doing, but it is only proper that Hilton's case should be stated as clearly and fairly as it can be stated, and judged on grounds quite other than
those that
Mr
Kettlewell used.
it
cannot hope to
state the case as
may
should be stated, but this chapter induce some enthusiast to do what I am unable
Hilton himself.
not
It is
to perform.
First, then, as to
to
add a
little,
though
much,
to
possible the useful

account
151
given
in
the
National Dictionary
of
was possibly the son of a man of Biography. the same name (see MS. 9259 in Bernard's Hst of EngHsh MSS., pubHshed at Oxford, 1697), not a Whether he was in particularly illuminating fact.
He
any way related to the Franciscan John Hilton of Norwich, a voluminous writer who died in 1376, His name is variously given. He is not known. Walter de Thurgarton. Bale, in called is sometimes ^ his "A Registre of Wryters," calls him Gualtherus " " de Hylton, but the de is dropped in his Index of The most usual name British and other writers.
is
Walter Hilton, but we also get Hylton. In the fifteenth-century Cambridge MS. of Hilton's translation
English of St Bonaventura's Stimulus Amoris we have the statement that the translation was made by " Maister Walter Hilton chanon and
into
governaire
of
Newark."^
zeal.
House of Thurgarton biside He was a man famed for his devotional

the
man " he is called in the Cambridge fifteenth-century MS. of the Scala perIn the British Museum MS. (Harl. 3852 fectionis.
"
ful
devoute
f.
i82(^) of the
Speculum de
Utilitate Religionis
laris
described by the phrase agister Beatus. with a Kempis Hilton, so far as I am aware, shared
he
is
Regu-
exemption from
and it is remarkable that this word should have been added to the manuscript. This very work is called elsewhere Epistola Aurea. John Bale, Bishop of Ossary, calls him vir pro sua
beatification,
^
Printed in 1549, London.
"^
See also Royal MS.
8.A. vii.
152
cEtate
THOMAS A KEMPIS
er7iditus.
following John was a Carthusian of Sheen and afterwards a doctor of Theology and Canon of A manuscript in New College seems Thurgarton. to suggest that Hilton was Vicar of St Mary
Pits,
Thomas Tanner,
declares that he
The Dictionary of National Magdalen, Oxford. Biography makes it clear that he was an Augustinian. To sum up, he was a man with the highest reputation for sanctity, who became the head of the An examination Augustinian House at Thurgarton. his of works shows that he wrote as freely in English as in Latin, and that he translated Latin authors
It is English for the use of the faithful. indeed, to tell whether his works were originally written in Latin or English, but the
into
difficult,
evidence seems
translations
in
favour of English.
Among
his
were English renderings of Lowys de Fontibus on Perfection, and Bonaventura's Stimulus

is.
Amor
his
There
is
some
difficulty in settling the
canon of
works, for even so well-known a book as the

is
Ladder of Perfection
is
occasionally attributed to Richard Rolle de Ampulla. The date of his death

fixed
by two possibly independent manuscripts. The first is a manuscript (Harley, 330 f. 1261^) of the Scala Perfectionis a Latin version by a Carmelite, Thomas Fishlake, from the original English, and it concludes with the statement that the work was by Walter Hilton, Canon of Thurgarton, who died on
March
24, 1395-6.
The
other
is
a late Cambridge
153
:
manuscript of the same work, which concludes " explicit libellus magistri Walteri Hilton Canonici
Thurgarton qui obiit anno domini mcccxcv decimo kalendas Aprilis circa solis occasum." If any further evidence is wanted to show that this is the probable date of his death it is to be found in the
de
fact that
Adam
Horsley, to
whom
Hilton addressed
his
work
in praise of the
Carthusian order, was an
officer of the
in the
Great Exchequer, and was employed
county of Gloucester in the year 1370.^ The date of Hilton's death excludes the explanation that he translated the Imitation. He died
when Thomas a Kempis was fifteen years of age. The questions that have to be considered are these How are we to explain the fact of a persistent English
tradition that Hilton
was the author of the Imitation^
the fact that the greatest English bibliophiles of the sixteenth and seventeeth centuries were absolutely
satisfied that
he was the author, the
fact that
among
the
list
work
of Hilton's works there always occurs a entitled Ecclesiastica Musica, which is identical
first
with the
three books of the Imitation, that
in no and in only one Continental manuscript qzwd sciam, and that manuscripts so entitled occur frequently in England ? First, we must consider the English literary authorities that support Hilton. Charles Hatton's letter and
this title is exclusively
English and appears
printed edition of the fifteenth century
1 See Issue Roll of the Exchequer, 44 Edw. by F. Devon, 1835 and Patent Rolls, i Ric. ii.,
;
III.,
pp. 404-5, edited
p. 202.
154
THOMAS A KEMPIS
:
the Oxford letter of 1706-7 give us the following data Petrius, Frisius, Possevinus, and Pits include
the
Ecclesiastica
it
Musica
in
Hilton's
identify
with the Imitation.
and Obadiah Walker had

works,
carefully considered the question of the authorship and had no doubt about Hilton's claim. Three
Oxford manuscripts entitled Ecclesiastica Musica were in fact the Imitation, but had no author's name. This evidence can be considerably enlarged. Bishop
Tanner
is
a late but important addition to the literary
authorities that accepted Hilton. John Bale, Bishop of Ossory, is a still more important addition, for his
opinion is almost overwhelmingly weighty as well as early. He was born in 1495 only twenty-five and died in after the death of a Kempis years
1563.
fled to
In 1540, on the fall of Thomas Cromwell, he Germany, and did not return until 1552, when
this date
he was nominated Bishop of Ossory. By he had acquired his unique knowledge, and
his large
When he was collection, of mediaeval manuscripts. hunted out of Ireland he fled to Zeeland and afterwards to Basle, returning to England in 1558. A year later he became Prebendary of Canterbury. Bale must have been familiar with both Continental
and English manuscripts of the
the
Imitatioji,
and with
at
Continental
opinion as to the authorship
Yet he is that time strongly in favour of Gerson. He gives an elaborate absolutely clear on the point.
list
of Hilton's works with the place where he had seen each manuscript, and among these he includes
:

"de Musica
non ambulat,'
he says of him
.
155
Ecclesiastica, Li.
i.
'qui sequitur
me
Ex Bonkant et
Wolfior^
Bale possibly
refers to the Imitation as the "
work of Hilton when
Gualtherus Hylton, vir pro sua etate
eruditus, inter alia
preclarum edidit opus, cui titulum
addidit
claruit," A.D. (No year given.) Bonham was apparently a bookseller of whom nothing else is known but Reiner Wolfius,
.
William
the other source referred to by Bale, was the wellknown London printer and publisher of German
origin,
who came
to
London
at
before 1537, and who died in the Ecclesiastica Musica may have
collection.
Cranmer's invitation His copy of 1573.
Bale's
come from Leland's evidence appears to me to amount

in existence in
to this, that there

first
was
England
in the
half of the sixteenth century manuscript evidence
which convinced authorities such as Bale, Wolfius, and probably Leland, that Walter Hilton was the author of the famous work. Was this the same evidence that convinced Obadiah Walker ? We seem to be able to take back the attribution of the work to Hilton to an even earlier date, though not
with the same certainty that exists in the case of Bale. shall have occasion directly to refer to the
We
Catalogue of the Syon Monastery at
Isle worth
-^
in
dealing with the MSS. entitled Musica Ecclesiastica, but for the moment we must note the following point.
""John Balis Index of Bishop and other Writers^ edited by Reginald Lane Poole, with the help of Mary Bateson (Oxford 1902), p. 106. ^ Edited by Miss Mary Bateson (Cambridge 1898).
156
THOMAS A KEMPIS
was a manuscript entitled Ecclesiastic x AfTtsica, given by Johannes West, and numbered in the Catalogue M. 26. In the imperfect index to the Catalogue (made at the end of the fifteenth or beginning
In that library
of the sixteenth century) there is given a list of This list Hilton's works contained in the library. does not include the Ecclesiastica Mttsica, but it
works of Hilton as occurring in the Codex M. 26, beginning respectively on Folios 41, 51, and 113 of the Codex, and it also mentions the It seems not Scala as included in the same Codex. to 26 contained this assume that M. illegitimate from a set of Hilton's writings, and that the Ecclesiastica Musica, which is catalogued under M. 26, was at the
refers to various
date of the catalogue regarded as Hilton's work. On the other hand, it might be contended that this that cataloofue is the orioin of the whole matter
;
work was regarded as Hilton's, because bound up with Hilton's undoubted works.
this
it
was
This
in
view
is
supported perhaps by
the fact that the other
MSS.
of the Ecclesiastica
Musica are not included

It
is
the Index of Hilton's catalogued works.
also
perhaps a fact to be noted that this library contained a MS. entitled Tractatus de Sacramento Altaris, against which the author of the Index puts a note of warnine. Now this title De Sacraîtento Altaris is
the
title
of the fourth
book
in
of the Imitation
in the Ecclesiastica
of the
book that
It is
if it
the earliest manuscripts is not included
Musica.
notable that this
fourth
book
is
entitled as
were a separate work,
157
and indeed there seems to be internal evidence to show that the three books of the Ecclesiastica MiLsica and the book De Sacra7ne7ito Altaris are to some
extent independent works.^ Codex M. 26, and the Index to the Catalogue, do seem to show on the whole that the Ecclesiastica
Musica was regarded in the England as the work of Hilton.
fifteenth
century in
Index does not refer to the other
The MSS. may be

fact that the
explained by the fact that it is very imperfect. Now, the House at Isleworth was founded in 141 5, and it is at present impossible to say at what date sub-
sequently to this John West gave the manuscript. It was almost certainly in the first half of the fifteenth century, though possibly the fact that no copy of
the Ecclesiastica Musica seems to occur in
Duke
the
Humphrey's
other hand
bequests to
the
Oxford of 1439 and 1443
may be adduced
against this conclusion.
On
Codex Librum commonitorium de
Contemptu Mundi, in the bequest of 1443, might Mundi possibly be this very book, for De Contemptti is one of the earliest titles of the Imitation, and, as we shall see, one that occurs in connection with the title Ecclesiastica Musica, However, I am inclined in the possession of once to think that this codex,
Duke Humphrey,
College,
spiritu."
is
the manuscript
"
now
Beati
in
Lincoln
Oxford,
this
which begins,
pauperes
However,
1
But see
prima facie case British Museum WSi.de Sacmmenio A /iarts {Arundel 214).
may
be, there
is
2.
158
THOMAS A KEMPIS
long before, perhaps half a
for the proposition that
century before the death of Thomas a Kempis, the first three books of the Imitation were current in
England under the

saintly
title
Ecclesiastica Musica,
and
with the reputation of having as their author the

It is Augustinian Canon Walter Hilton. certainly a remarkable fact that such a statement can be seriously made, and it is one that needs very
But explanation is not made the fact that the manuscripts entitled any by Ecclesiastica Musica are not only comparatively
definite explanation.
easier
numerous, but also possess the peculiar characteristic of so much of Hilton's work, the co-existence of both Latin and English manuscript editions. Speaking
for
myself only, I must confess that if I knew that Hilton had flourished at the date that Pits says that
he flourished, namely 1433,

solution.
The
I should despair of any case would be as conclusive for the
authorship of Hilton as it is for the authorship of a Kempis. However, Hilton almost certainly died
in 1395-
Mr
Kettlewell adds several to the Ecclesiastica
Musica group of manuscripts referred to in the inaccurate and misleading Oxford letter of 1706-7.
References to manuscripts so entitled
are,
however,
much more numerous than Mr Kettlewell realised. Even my own necessarily incomplete examination of
the subject
makes
this clear, as the following list will
show.
It
may be
that specialists will be able to

list it
add
to the number.
In making the
will
be con-

venient
first
159
wherever
first
to refer to all such manuscripts, mentioned, keeping in mind the fact that the
of
all
six manuscripts
mentioned are possibly included

all
in the others
which are
extant.
The Syon Catalogue

titles
:
gives four with the following
(i)
Musica
ecclesiastica
(M.
26.
given by John
et
West).
(2)
Musica
ecclesiastica
de Imitacione Christi
de contemptu mundi. fo. 48 (M. 86).

(3)
Multi sermones
cum
112.
aliis.
Musica
ecclesiastica
cum
aliis
(M.
Given
by John Lawisby, Vicar of Ware, who died 1490). intitulatur Musica ecclesiastica {4) Tractatus qui
solitariis
et
contemplativis
utilis
fo.
109
(N.
'^^.
Given by one Pynchbek, who was possibly a Doctor Pinchbeck who flourished 1457). With respect to (i) Miss Bateson suggests that it
may be
(see p.
identical with
MS. 475
in
Lambeth Library
"
160 below).
Owing respect to (2) Miss Bateson says, this to title Hilton has been called the author of the
With
De
Imitatione,
cf,
M.
26."
The
Catalogue, however,
does not attribute any of these four
MSS.
to Hilton.
De (5 6) John Bale refers to two copies of the Ecclesiastica Musica from the shops of Bonham and
Wolfius.
(7)
&
The
British
in
It
Museum
begins
has a fine copy dated 1460-80.
(Royal MS. 7 B. viii) a Flemish hand which may be

"
:
Incipit liber
interne
160
consolacionis
dividitur
in
THOMAS A KEMPIS
qui
tres
vocatur
partes
musica ecclesiastica
principales.
et
Prima
pars
continet
xxv
Christi et " explicit tercia ultima pars libri interne consolacione With this MS. qui vocatur musica ecclesiastica."
capitula capitulum primum de imitatione contemptu omnium mundi," and ends
may be ranked (8) The Coventry School

Bernard's
"
Catalogue
of
MS,, described for 1697 by the illustrious

it
Humphrey Wanley.
He
catalogues
as follows
This wants a Title page and author's name, which is not mentioned in it. " It is divided into three parts, which are thus
called
:
1.
2.
Musica ecclesiastica. Admonitiones ad interna trahentes.
3.
De
interna consolatione.
in
parchment, about the time of King guess by the hand." Wanley makes no suggestion of authorship, but MS. under Thomas a Bernard indexes the
It is
"
wrote
Edw.
IV., as
Kempis at the very made his declaration

Kempis.
date
when Obadiah Walker
a against the authorship of
We
may
next notice the Lambeth Palace Library

536).
I
MSS. (Numbers 475 and

(9) Folios
90 b of MS. 475 comprise a work (according to the Catalogue, by Walter Hilton), ''Qui Vocatur Musica Ecclesiastica, in three books. This
to
is
followed in the
Codex by
the treatise
De
Utilitate
.ti
^^^ fife
f^
ta^(Gtt.Sai-n4atf^<2{^r*t^^^(^'
PART OF THE FIRST CHAPTER OF THE FIRST BOOK OF THE TREATISE "MUSICA ECCLESIASTICA:" FROM THE MANUSCRIPT IN THE LIBRARY OF EMMANUEL COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE
THIS MS. CONSISTS OF
THE FIRST THKEK BOOKS OF THE TREATISE " DE IMITATIONE CHRISTI," AND PROBABLY BELONGS TO THE FIRST HALF OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. THERE IS A SECOND MS. AT EMMANUEL CONSISTING OF THE THIRD BOOK ONLY.

Tribulationis,
161
which has always been recognised as Hilton's, and the juxtaposition of the two works raises a presumption that the Musica was at the date of transcription considered to be by Hilton.
The catalogue the date of transcription ? states that the MS. de Utilitate (in the same hand)
What
is
is
a fourteenth century manuscript, and if this is so the claims of Thomas a Kempis are finally disposed
of.
It
that
it is
seems, however, to be the better opinion a fifteenth century manuscript, and I should
On the flyplace it rather late in that century. leaf of the Codex is the signature, Johannes BarkUnder this is written: "In hoc ham, A.D. 1612.
volumine
continetur
sive
1
Gualteri
Hilton
Christi
Musica
in
Ecclesiastica
De
Imitatione
. .
tres
." On the face of partes seu libros divisa, 2^ it these words seem strong evidence of Hilton's
claim.
In fact they are worth about as much as the opinion of Pitseus, for they were probably written " by John Barkham, and indeed the words Gualteri
Hilton
later
"
and
"
de imitatione Christi" must be by a

Sancroft's hand, as they after the rest of the passage was
hand, probably
Dr
have been added

written.
This passage
of the
is,
however, clearly not the origin
Hilton case, as Bale had long before advocated Hilton's claim. I see, moreover, no M. 26 of for with the Codex grounds identifying
the
Syon
Monastery
Library.
Indeed
it
is
obviously not that not in this Lambeth
Codex which contained works
MS.
162
(lo)
THOMAS A KEMPIS
The Lambeth MS. 536
is
on parchment,
and
I should be incHned to place it earlier than MS. 475. It be dated in the The may possibly early century. " Hiclibellus vocatur musica manuscript begins qui
is
attributed to the fifteenth century.
ecclesiastica
in virtute proficere cupientibus valde necessaria et dividitur in tres partes." It is
omnibus
the second
MS.
in the
Codex, and
libris
is
described in
the catalogue as follows:
"2. Musica ecclesiastica

sequitur 7ne
III.
Incipit,
Qui
non ambulat hi
tenebris.
Nihil habet
de Musica praeter Titulum, sed agit de praecipuis virtutibus Christianis. Tres sunt primi Libri de
Imitatione
buntur,
fol.
Christi,
4."
qui
Kempensi
vulgo
ascri-
Three Cambridge MSS. may next be

(11
12)
noticed.
The Emmanuel
:
College parchment
Codices are indexed as follows

"
"]"].
De
"
;
interna
Christi
locutione
ad
animam
fidelem
"
%'x,.
Musica
Augustini Soliloquia, cum Thomae a Kempis ecclesiastica, item Imprecationes ecclesiae
The manuscripts give no first MS. consists of the third The author's name. book only. The second MS. begins qui sequitur
contra inimicos suos."
7ne
non ambulat
in tenebris
and
consists of the three
The work concludes: "explicit liber interne consolationis et tertia pars Musicae EcclesiThis is followed by six folios of directions asticae."
usual books.
for
each day of the week. The college authorities It is regard it as a fifteenth century manuscript.
Of rnffljupfcfi
x>f )u'
0f Ism-a
ft
cfl|Jitiifii'
ig
mtam ^
ôle1iri)^S7ôttr<^
i*>'V
-^
iimmif .cfljJitnlnm.
;0f fduf of fofmitc
fliJil
filVntr. cfl|jrm.;jS;
21,^^^
cf mmuimmon
of (jatt. cfl)3itfn,
.
â3u|iaTflnon of nifluufe mi/hf CfTai
îY '"^'^'^n'oTi
of
ntr
Itttjc. cfljjimfiT. :^'!
Of tljc y ngrnif
.
mia of
.
rtif
jfljiics
C
111
^1
j
of friiimts cfipitiifimi of nf |tr: BiiDtcfprfrw|T j-JTslDj'ngt
ifr^^'
"1
!:'\jfill
iwkitfci^ljciiiatfj ctti nif ^mitfl not mtHv

taicflTc .':x^l\i:6
nr
]if
vvo^^co
__^ i of enfk.m |ic mîrfjc t\?e

tv
amoiij;f^t'j).TBfBrol^c
.
fiio ftljr rtiiOljic

.
niiiumufve
If n3f U-ollBf \jm()^ iftimiîicD

flftV
flnH Gc rtfiûcrcil -fio
iiiaim' GfpiuViice
fof fiatr
.
Vl?r|frc
faac fcmr ourc
fonaapnc
INDEX OF CHAPTKKS 17-2o OF THIC FIRST BOOK. AND PART OF THE FIRST CHAPTER OF THE FIRST BOOK OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY ENGLISH VERSION OF THE TREATISE " MUSICA ECCLESIASTICA :" FROM MS. G. G. IN THE CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY. THIS MS. IS IMPERFECT BUT CONTAINS MOST OF THE FIRST THREE BOOKS OF " THE TRE.\TISE DE IMITATIONE CHRISTI." IT BELONGS TO THE FIRST HALF OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.
I.
Iti,

apparently
in
163
one hand throughout, but the same hand probably did not write the other works contained in the Codex.
(13) in the
in the
The manuscript
catalogued as G.
is
g.
i.
16
Cambridge University Library

published catalogue as follows:
ff.
.
. .
described
on vellum, containing
"a quarto, date abotit 1400. 171 An English translation of the first three books of If in fact the the treatise de Imitatione Christi."
of the claim of
tually as the
manuscript can be dated "about 1400," it disposes Thomas a Kempis almost as effecof
Lambeth MS. 475 would have disposed them had the cataloguer's date been correct. However, there seems little doubt that G. g. i. 16
a good deal
nearer
1450.
is
The MS.
:
begins:
"
"
Here begynneth the
tretes called
Musica Ecclesi-
astica"; and ends after the Oratio Au7'ea
Here
ends the boke of inwarde consolacion."
This MS. must be classed with the two following MSS. (14) An MS., in 1697 "^ the College of Physicians,
Dublin,
is
now
in
the library of Trinity College,
Dublin, and has been collated with (13) above and brilliantly edited for the Early English Text Society
(1893) by
Dr J. K. Ingram. It is catalogued by Bernard as follows " The works of Tho. a Kempis in an ancient hand, in old English, on vellom, containing only
:
three books, the fourth
commonly
printed with the
three
first, being falsely called his as some think." This entry reflected a particular class of opinion
at the
end of the seventeenth century.
While some
164
THOMAS A KEMPIS
for
scholars claimed three books
Hilton and one
the only for a Kempis, others, as we see, considered a de Sacramento Altaris as not belonging to Kempis
at
all.
It
should be noted that there
is
no old English
to use Bernard's
MS. in the Bodleian. The Bodleian contains, however,

descriptions
:
" De interna consolatione tractatus imper(15) " fectus [this MS. (Laud. 215 (i), 15th cent.) has lost the first chapter of the first book and the last
chapter (59) of the third book.
It
has only three

ita scilicet, in-
books]
(16)
and
"
Liber de Musica ecclesiastica
scribitur sed sensu allegorico, agit
ad Pietatem spectantibus.
Christi
et
enim totus de rebus Cap est de imitatione " contemptu omnium vanitatum mundi
i.
(Bodley 632).
(17)
"Musica
ecclesiastica,
alias
de imitatione
Christi, tribus partibus, scriptus erat liber iste A.D. 1469," et an. octavo, Edward IV. Regis Angliae etc.
per Tho. Kempis
"
(Arch. Seld. Bodley 93).
Bernard appears to have recognised that (16) was the Imitation, though he has added a note similar to that written a hundred years later by the Perhaps it cataloguer in the Lambeth MS. 536. should be noted that (17) is of the same date and class as the British Museum (7) and Coventry
School
note
is
(8)
MSS.
The
last
manuscript that
:
shall
a famous Oxford one, namely
(18)
The Magdalen
College
MS.
(xciii.),
Novem-

ber
29th,
;
165
The first book was written by 1438. John Dygoun, a recluse of Sheen the other two books were from the pen of Dygoun, aided by some
anonymous
It
scribe.
may
be that the solution of the mystery
is
involved in the origin and history of this manuscript. I have noted that there were no less than four
copies of the Miisica Ecclesiastica in the Library of Syon Monastery. The Carthusian House at
Sheen
as
called
Jesus
Bateson
the
Monks and Nuns of the at Order Brigettine Syon, Isleworth (circa 141 5), " and the two Houses frequently acted together."
House
points out, of the
of Bethlehem was, as Miss founded about the same time
One may
of the
suspect some common origin and the manuscript of Syon. MS. Magdalen Had Hilton been a member of the Carthusian Monastery at Sheen, as alleged by Pitseus, we
therefore
should bring him into almost direct relationship with the earliest manuscripts of the Ecclesiastica Musica, but, fortunately or unfortunately, he died, if the
British
Museum and
the
Cambridge manuscripts
are to be believed, twenty years before the at Sheen was founded.
House
There can be no manner of doubt that Hilton held the Carthusian Order in great veneration, for there is at Magdalen a work at*;ributed to him entitled De
utihtate et prcerogativis Religionis et praecipue ordifiis Ca7^t/msiensis (by accident or design in the same
Codex (93) with

and
at
Merton there
the copy of the Mzisica Ecclesiastica) is a manuscript of the same

;
166
treatise also
THOMAS A KEMPIS
addressed to
Horsley, a Baron of the Exchequer. The work was in fact a trumpetcall to swell the ranks of the Carthusian Order.
Adam
This Magdalen manuscript was (probably) once in Syon Monastery. It certainly seems to me to play an important part in the mystery that surrounds the
It is origin of the belief in the Hilton authorship. therefore not impossible that when, in the first
quarter of the fifteenth century, the House at Sheen secured an anonymous copy of the first three books,
they attributed the work to a
already popularly known as Beatus, and was in fact the most of his day. prolific author of theological treatises
man who was
Meanwhile an embargo was, for some ecclesiastical reason, laid upon the fourth book assuming of course that the De Sacramento Altaris of the Syon catalogue and the fourth book of the Imitation are the same works. This seems to me a reasonable
The only way to reconcile explanation of the facts. the claims of Hilton and a Kempis, if Hilton did in
fact write the
De
Ecclesiastica Mtcsica,
that Hilton wrote the
work
into
to suppose in English and that a

is
;
Kempis
a
translated
it
Latin
but this would
assume a knowledge
of the Eno-lish vernacular that
Kempis could hardly have possessed. If the House at Sheen did in fact issue a manuHilton's name,
it is
script in
not
difficult to
under-
stand the very positive position adopted by Bale and Walker. But the existence of the early English
translations,
though in accordance with Hilton's usual practice, seems to me entirely explicable on
i-j^?c4JilfZP
^9
^pj^.|>iegî3^ i^^
4^
PART OF THE ALPHABETICAL INDEX OF THE THIRD liOOK AND PART OF THE FIRST CHAPTER OF THE FIRST BOOK OF THE TREATISE "MUSICA ECCLESIASTICA, (DE IMITATIONS CHRISTI), FROM THE MS. NUMBERED 93 AT MAGDALEN COLLEGE, OXFORD
'
THE
MS.
IS
I.S
HOOK
DATED NOVEMHER 29rH 14^8. IT CONTAINS THE FIRST THREE HOOKS. IHE FIRST FROM THE TEN OF JOHN DYGOUN, A RECLU.SE OF SHEEN. THE SECOND AND -l-HIRD BOOKS CONT.MN ALSO THE HAND OF AN ANONVMOUS SCRIliF.
:

other grounds
if
;
167
for the
Carthusian monks of Sheen,
they
attributed
the
work
to
Hilton,
naturally have followed his practice of issuing English as well as a Latin edition.
would an
What
is
remarkable
is
the rarity of manuscripts

at
of the Imitation which are not of the Ecclesiastica
nmsica type.
the
The House
source
Sheen was obviously

copies
in
only
English
of
the
early
perhaps accounts for the fact that Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, had no copy. A cursory examination of sources shows eight
fifteenth century,
this
and
manuscripts of the Imitation that are not of the
Sheen type five in the British Museum and three in One Bodleian manuscript is very late, the Bodleian.
and presumably includes the
of Gerson, for
it is
De
Meditatione Cordis
The
and
in
described as being va five books. British Museum manuscripts are interesting,

I
them,
think,
the Sheen type. 8, C. VII., and it
we must look for the source of The earliest MS. is the Royal MS.
one can scarcely help believing, century in date, lying between
is,
very early fifteenth It consists of not quite the dates 1405 and 1420. The rest of the MS. the whole of the first book.
has been
it
lost,
but
we have no
right to
assume that
did not consist of the whole work.

is
The Burney
certainly also very early fifteenth century, not later than 1440 and perhaps as early as 1420.
Its particular
MS. 314
MS.
probably the earliest The that attributes the work to Gerson.

value
is
that
it is
Harleian
MS. 3216
not 1464 as
Mr
dated 21st December 1454, The Kettlewell has stated in error.

is
168
additional
THOMAS A KEMPIS
MS. 11,437, which is probably not later than 1470, and the Harley MS. 3223 which is dated 1478, both attribute the work to Gerson.
The
sion
is
it
manuscript of interest
the Royal
in this present discusvii.
MS.
8,
C.
Its
date suggests
that
may have been the original from which the monks of Sheen or Syon copied, and one is tempted to infer (as an alternative to the explanation pre-
viously suggested) that the remaining copy having been secured and attributed to Hilton, an attempt
was made to detach the MS. from the Codex, but that this was done so as accidentally to leave most of the first book intact. If the monks of Sheen and Syon were desirous of appropriating the work of Mount St Agnes to their own country, they had a large measure of
success.
The
in
first
Pynson
books.
1503
edition printed in England by consisted only of the first three
Dr Atkinson
had,
it
is
clear,
access to a
with only these books, and it was necessary to supplement the work with Princess Margaret's translation from the French vernacular version.
MS.
Moreover, as we have seen, the keenest bibliophiles of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were
Hence, while it is, as I think, entirely deceived. impossible to believe that Walter Hilton wrote the
Imitation or any part of it, yet the relationship of his name to the work forms an interesting chapter in
the history of European literature.
Those,
Imitatio7i
however,
who wish
to
prove
that
the
was written by an Englishman need not

despair.
169
if
The
I
case for Hilton

little
is
a strong one
it
his
can, Perhaps the over get though It be would as to Adam evidence Horsley. strange, however, if the authorship of the Imitation were to turn on the identity of an English Exchequer official of the baser kind in the year 1370. Still, even if
death can be placed a

confess that
later.
it is
difficult to
Hilton has to be abandoned, there is his School to work enough for a century of polemics. consider
Meantime I am content to believe that the work was written at Mount St Agnes about the year 1 The view is confirmed, as I have shown 4 10.
above,
by the
fact
that
Thomas
Kempis
is
de But (writing definitely connected by Adriaan " 1480) with a work, Metrice descriptum.'' De But
in
in
fact connects the Musica Ecclesiastica with the name The musical of the Flemish Augustinian Canon.
marks used by a Kempis for purposes of punctuation also seem to connect him with this title.
I may perhaps finally note here, before I pass from the question of the manuscripts, that the work, or part of it, became popular in Holland at a very early date. Among the Marshall MSS. at the Bodleian Library
(MS.
of the
of about the middle contains ten short which century The sixth piece is a religious pieces in Dutch. translation of the twelfth chapter of the second book, 124) there
fifteenth
is
Codex
and
Van den conincliken wegh des hoe ons selfs cruce sullen ende Heilighen Cruce,
is
"
entitled,
draghen."
THE STRUCTURE OF THE IMITATION

npHE ^
material that goes to the making of the four books of the Imitation calls for some analysis.
soul of simplicity.
These devotional works seem the
Their fresh springs of aspiration and prayer appear to gush forth in spontaneity from the ground of the If any force draws them, it is the affinity heart. The operations of the between man and God.
mind, the literary instinct of man, the intellectual
building up of a great work
here.
Yet
in
truth
art
have no place can so closely approach

to
seem
nature that
tions.
it is
difficult to distinguish their
opera-
author of the Imitation was an artist of the highest rank, and he built his work, sentence by sentence, with an indefinable skill, with a con-
The
His height structive genius that defies analysis. of art does not simulate, but actually produces the
cry of the child to the Father which
is
in
Heaven.
to
With an unerring judgment he has gone
the
where is to be found literary sources and fountains that yearning "of the alone for the Alone," which Not as a philosopher or as he adopts and teaches.
a creed worshipper has he gone to those sources, but as a man seeking for words that would touch the hearts of men, and he has transferred these
170
STRUCTURE OF THE IMITATION

living
171
:
words
into
the structure of his
work
the
verba that Hving souls had long ago out to the living God, not dead summaries poured of what dead men believed and thought. His art
ipsissima
consisted in the inspired borrowing of phrases and in bringing phrases so borrowed into vital organic
union one with another
inspired selection, inspired
combination, and the spiriting away of all traces of art. The Imitation was a new work, a book born
and yet it contains hardly an is indeed the This invented phrase. very virtue of No phrase that time had not proved to the work.
into
immortality,
be a living force in the instinctive spiritual life of man was allowed any place in it. It was intended to represent the spiritual experiences of past generations, and to bring them into the lives of It was tacitly assumed generations yet unborn. that all possible spiritual experiences had been exhausted since the time of Christ, and that if they
could
be crystallised into words, the follower of Christ would at any rate know the road eternally
set aside for the following of Christ. The words that time had proved to be alive, words that had
been the
life
and death cry of unnumbered
millions,
the cry of the saint as well as of the sinner, these words, the author of the Imitation seemed to think,
might well be recombined into the Aoyo? of the

spiritual
life,
as that
life
was conceived before the
Dawn
very
of the Renaissance.
structure
Hence we
see in the
spiritual
of these
little
books the
172
THOMAS A KEMPIS
down.
in the
limitations that they lay
was not exhausted

century,
it
Spiritual experience beginning of the fifteenth
Then, as now, it was approaching a new place of departure, was evolving a new method of approaching the Divine. But Thomas a Kempis, looking out upon the night
is
not exhausted now.
He gives of his time, saw nothing but the stars. us no hint of the dawn. He is living at the end of
the night, not only of his age, but of the Middle Ages, and the darkness before the dawn is very deep. He
is
fulfilling his duty,
and he believes
that
he
is
stating
the whole duty of

perfect
literary
man when he crystallises into form the Godward yearning of
humanity through fourteen centuries of time. He was not even the modernist of his own age. The
mysticism of the
reflected
in
fourteenth
his
work.
It
is
century is not fully not possible for the
literary critic to say,
this
bears
late
beyond
all
doubt
the
mystic
stamp of the
fourteenth century.
Competent
it
critics have been prepared to carry back to the days of St Bernard without any
sense
of literary
felt
or
spiritual
incongruity.
author
nothing of
the
reform
The movement so
busily at
work
is
in his time.
No
touch of Wiclivism,
no
taint of Lollardy
appears
in the little books, yet
the writer
so
immersed
in the best
thought of
all
the Christian ages that there is no touch or taint of An unconscious reformer, he adopts superstition. unconsciously as part of his calm spiritual outlook
all that,
from his point of view, the Reformation and

the Counter- Reformation had to teach.
It
173
was not
necessary to disorganise or reorganise the civilised world in order to teach him the unfettered right of man to approach his Creator, the other hand,
On
no
social
upheaval could have taught him other
lessons that the Reformation
had
in
hand.
The
best of the past was his already, but as to the future, he looked for it, as he would have looked for it in
the days of Gerbert when the thousand years were about to be accomplished, in another and a heavenly
country.
of the promise of this life he looked eagerly for that which is to come. The was the matter of Christ that he had in following
little
;
He made
hand, and diligently he

material wherewith to
mapped
in
fill
the journey. The the ground-plan of his
map he found in the New and Old Testaments, and he selected it with the aid of the most spiritual
thinkers and dreamers that had lived between his
time and the time of the Apostles.

of singular already saturated with the
Through a mind humility and receptive power, a mind
German mysticism
of the
Middle Ages, there passed in patient detail the great book from Genesis to the Revelations of St John the Divine. With his own neat and unhastening hand he copied out the Bible from cover to cover. The mind retained what the mind looked was already half its own. what What did for,
the Bible
mean
to
message of the Catholic
Hammerlein ? Did it mean the Church ? Perhaps. But
174
first
THOMAS A KEMPIS
and foremost
that
it
meant
that
men
should follow,
not this or
creed,
but
Christ.
The
fourth
book, the de Sacramento Altaris, was a supplement. The three books are an entity without it,
though
fitted
it
can be
fitted
in,
as a
Kempis himself
author, be he a
life
it in,
after the second.

is
The
Kempis
or another,
concerned with
rather than
with doctrine, with life eternal, as exhibited in the Bible, and seen by the men who followed Christ in
the school of St
John of Patmos.
are a marvellous mosaic, largely comfrom the actual text of the Bible. There are piled more than one thousand direct references to the
The books
Bible in the four
little treatises.
In the
first
treatise
at
of
twenty-five
short chapters
there
are
;
least
one hundred and seventy references in the second treatise with its twelve brief chapters, at least one hundred and three in the third and book of sixty-three chapters, there are as longest as and fifty while in the last five hundred many
;
;
treatise
containing eighteen chapters
many
as
two hundred and
three.
we have as From every
part of the
Bible they come in lavish profusion. There is hardly a book unrepresented. The great sources of inspiration are first, not the New
Testament, as we might expect, but the Psalms, and In secondly, the Epistles, and then the Gospels.
the
life
first
book
are
to
the admonitions useful for a spiritual
there
ferable
the
some seventy-seven passages reOld Testament, and ninety-three
175
Of the passages referable to the New Testament. from are the Psalms and seventeen former, eighteen
from Ecclesiasticus, whilst we have also references
to Genesis,
Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Kings,

Job,
Chronicles,
Proverbs,
Ecclesiastes,
Isaiah,
Jeremiah,
are
Tobit, Judith, Solomon, and first book of the Maccabees.

-
Esther, the
to
Wisdom
of
There
twenty Gospels, namely, eleven to St Matthew, one to St Mark, seven to St Luke, and eight to St John. There are sixty-six other definite references to the
Testament, to the First Epistle of St John, the Epistle to the Ephesians, the First Epistle of St Peter, the Epistle to the Romans, the Acts of the
Apostles, the Epistle to the Galatians, the Epistle of St James, the two Epistles to the Corinthians, the two Epistles to Timothy, the Epistle to the
Philippians, the Epistle Epistle to the Hebrews,
to
seven
references
the
New
the
Colossians,
to
the the
and the Epistles
Thessalonians.
The second book
the treatise
of admonitions
tending to things internal gives us forty-seven references to the Old Testament and the Apocrypha,
of
which
eighteen
are
to
the
Psalms.
There
are quotations from Genesis, Deuteronomy, Kings, Tobit,

there
to
Chronicles, Job, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Proverbs, Micah, the Song of Solomon, Joel, Wisdom,
Ecclesiasticus,
and Judith.
references
five
In the
to
to
New
Testament
are
ten
St St
St
Luke, and
Matthew, eleven We have John,
176
also
THOMAS A KEMPIS
references to the Epistles to the Romans, the Hebrews, the Corinthians, the Thessalonians, the Galatians, the Philippians, and to the Acts,
the Epistle of St James, the First Epistle of St There is no quotation Peter, and the Revelations.
from St Mark.
The
all
There are
in
author quotes him but rarely. only eight quotations from St

as
Mark
in
the whole of the Imitation,

fifty
against
sixty-seven from St Matthew,
from St Luke,
and sixty-eight from St John. The only reference in the first book is the second paragraph in the first " Ab omni caecitate cordis chapter, where the phrase " liberari may be referred to St Mark (iii. 5) and
the Epistle to the Ephesians
(iv.
18).
In the third
book we get
spiritus
in
chapter
vi.
a reference
im^nunde
to
to St
Mark
(v. 8),
and
et
in the
same chapter
the
another
reference
Tace
obmutesce
(iv.
previous chapter of St Mark verse is again referred to in

21,
39).
This same
xxiii.
chapter
verse
is
where St Mark's phrase
tratiquillitas
magna
i
used.
have references
In the fourth book, chapter iii., to St Mark (i. 34, and
we seem
viii.
to
seqq-).
In the twelfth chapter St Mark (xiv. 14, 15).
we have
a direct reference to
For some reason the Gospel
according to St
the
Epistles,
did not appeal to the author of the Imitation in the way that the other Gospels,
Mark
and the Psalms appealed
to
him.
We
have forty-three references to the Epistle to the Romans, sixty-six to the Epistles to the Corinthians, twenty-two to the Epistle to the Hebrews.

When we
177
turn to the long third book we find that there are three hundred and fourteen references to
the Old Testament and
Apocrypha (including one
hundred and twenty-two to references to the Job, and twenty to Isaiah), ninety-five and hundred forty-one to other books Gospels, and one In the Old Testament and of the New Testament.
thirty-four to the Psalms,
Apocrypha there are references to Genesis (fifteen), Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Kings,
Job,
Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Wisdom, Esdras, Judith, Baruch, Nahum, Tobit, In the New Testament there are Maccabees. references to the Epistles to the Corinthians, the
Proverbs,
Isaiah,
Romans, the Galatians, the Ephesians, the

pians,
Philip-
the
Hebrews.
Thessalonians, the Colossians, There are thirty-five references to St

the
Matthew, three to St Mark, seventeen to St Luke, and forty to St John. There are references to the Acts of the Aposdes, the Episde of St James, the Episdes of St Peter, the Episdes to Timothy, the Episde of St Jude, and the Revelation of St third John the Divine. It is noteworthy that in this considerTestament Old the to book the references the references ably exceed those to the New, while numerous as half are Psalms alone to the again as
those to the Gospels.
The
references to the Epistles
are, however, almost as
numerous as those to the When we turn to the fourth book we Psalms. find that there are about one hundred and thirteen M
178
THOMAS A KEMPIS
quotations from or allusions to the Old Testament, of which thirty-five are from the Psalms. There are
some
eleven to forty-five references to the Gospels St Matthew, four to St Mark, fifteen each to St Luke and St John. The references to the Old
Testament and Apocrypha include the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy,
Kings, Chronicles, Job, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Proverbs, The Song of Solomon, Hosea, Ecclesiastes, Habakkuk, Malachi, Ecclesiasticus,
Esdras (i). Wisdom. The references to the New Testament include the Epistles to the Hebrews,
the Ephesians, the Corinthians, the Philippians, the Colossians, the Galatians, the Romans, and the
Epistles of St Peter, St John, and St James, the Epistles to Timothy and Titus, the Acts of the Apostles, the Revelation of St John the Divine.
These thousand or more

ences to
specific
direct or indirect referin
passages
the
Old and
New
Testaments and the Apocrypha of course the numbers given are only approximate in no way Every complete the author's debt to the Bible. One phrase is haunted with Biblical reminiscence.
curious consequence of this
ear.
is
patent to the English
No modern
translation of the Imitation
whoWy
satisfies the
The
Bible,
expectation of the reader or the hearer. roll of an Elizabethan version, of one con-
temporary
is
with
the
Authorised
Version
of
the
the
demand
is
of ear and heart.

lost,
reminiscence
partly
unless
The Biblical we hear the

Bible.
179
cadence that belongs beyond divorce to our English
The peculiar tenets and the peculiar limitations of the Irnitation are woven into a groundwork of
Biblical phrases,
and they take from those phrases

tone.
their colour
is
and
The
chief of these limitations
that the reader of the Imitation
must look
at the
Bible as a
Kempis and
it,
his spiritual predecessors
looked at
treatises
is
if
the
felt.
full
to
be
significance of these little They appeal to our nature,
but not to our whole nature.
Save
in so far as
Kempis anticipated the cleansing forces of subsequent and he did to a considerable spiritual developments we can only place extent anticipate these forces
ourselves in touch with the
mind behind the hnitation
by neglecting the lessons of the Renaissance and the Reformation, and the even deeper lessons of
the mysteries of mind and The Bible, as a Kempis and his spiritual matter. ancestors read it, is the groundwork of the Imitation.
modern research
into
The modern mind must

ently,
in many ways read it differand therefore again and again we feel our-
selves out of touch with the Imitation as a whole.
does not materially militate against the lasting power of the work, for while the books taken as a whole are wantinof in much that belongs
this
Yet
fact
yet the individual as a this defect not, rule, they may well appeal to the entire nature in a particular mood and in fact their appeal to all classes of society
to
spiritual experience,
modern
chapters have
180
is
THOMAS A KEMPIS
it
as powerful to-day as the past five centuries.
has been at any time
in
Into the BibHcal groundwork a
Kempis weaved
the thoughts of men to whom, as to himself, the Bible was ultimately the main source of inspiration
But these same men were for the most part familiar with the great thinkers and These thinkers writers of the pre-Christian ages. did not appeal at all directly, and with the exception
and
spiritual direction.
of Plotinus hardly appealed at all to Thomas a He was not conscious of the debt that Kempis.
he owed both
and the Neo-Platonists, or of the influence that Aristotle's philosophy had upon his own philosophy of life. Once, or at the most The only notable twice, does he quote Aristotle. instance is in the opening words of the second chapter of the first book, where he says, "Omnis homo naturto Plato
aliter scire
desiderat sed scientia sine timore

"
?
Dei
quid importat
(lib.
i.,
This
is
from
The Metaphysics
Monsignor Puyol has traced the cap. i.). quotation to the Latin version of Cardinal Bessarion,^
where the words used are

scire desiderant.'
'
Omnes homines
k
natura
natural
:
Thomas
with
its
Kempis immediately
corrects the Aristotelian statement of the
aspiration of
what
of spiritual equivalent without the fear of God ? knowledge a serf he humble who serves God is adds, Truly, better than a proud philosopher who, neglecting
avail
is
man
himself, studies the courses of the stars.

1
We
shall
Tom.
ii.
page 1269,
ed. Lugd., 1581.
181
see directly that this is only one of various direct attacks on the Aristotelian School as represented by Abelard and others. In chapter twenty-five of the
book we have the phrase, "subtrahere se violenter ad quod natura vitiose inclinatur," and Dr Bigg is
first
inclined to think that perhaps there It ence to Aristotle's Ethics (ii. 9).
it
is
here a referso,
may be
but
must be remembered that in the fourteenth century Aristotelian concepts were much in the air, and were unconsciously adopted by many who had no sympathy with Aristotle as presented by the Schoolmen. The Augustinian Canon may have obtained both passages direct from Bessarion, but it is more probable that they were drawn from some monastic commonplace book. This was almost certainly the
case,
as
Dr Bigg
has pointed out,

is
in
instance
where Seneca
quoted.
the solitary This is in the
sixth paragraph of chapter twenty of the first book, where we read, " Dixit quidam quoties inter
:
homines fui, minor homo redii." This is a paraphrase of a passage Seventh Epistle: " Avarior redeo,
luxuriosior,
in
Seneca's
ambitiosior,
immo
vero
crudelior
et
inhumanior,
quia inter homines fui." have several quotations from the Latin poets, but there is only one doubtful reference to the
We
deified Virgil.
The
first
(lib.
quotation
ii,
is
from Ovid's
in
De Remedio Amoris
twenty-first
first
91),
and occurs
the
the
paragraph of chapter thirteen
in
book.
The passage
runs
182
"
THOMAS A KEMPIS
Unde quidam
dixit
:
Principiis obsta, sero medicina paratur
Quum
It is
is
mala per longas convaluere moras."
a note that a
Kempis
strikes often.
He
that
whole needeth no physician, therefore

sin.
resist the
beginnings of
the sin
the
in
is
The remedy comes
too late
when
same
In the eleventh chapter of book he sounds the same warning " Resiste
well rooted.
:
principio
inclinationi
tuse,
et
malam
dedisce
te
consuetudinem, ne forte paulatim ad majorem ducat difficultatem."
It was perhaps with a gleam of the latent humour which is ever peeping out in this most serious call to humanity that the saintly canon went to Ovid for
the purpose of driving home the lesson. In the thirty-third chapter of the third book we seem to
find,
Dr Bigg has pointed out, a further reference to The passage runs in Dr Bigg's version " It Ovid. is rare to find one who is wholly free from the mole
:
of self-seeking" (" et raro totus liber quis invenitur a naevo propriae exquisitionis"), and Dr Bigg tells us
that "there
V.
13,
erit."
probably a reference to Ovid. Tristia Nullus in egregio corpore naevus 14: This view is, however, very doubtful, for the
is
"
on the use of the word naevus. an excellent text as edited by Monsignor Puyol, whatever we may think as to its alleged authorship has no such word. It has nervus, which, if used, as it is colloquially used in
identification turns
Now
the
Codex Aronensis
the Latin comedies, to
mean
a prison,
fits
in well

with the word
the
liber,
is
183
if
and makes a simpler text than

used.
It
is
word
naevtcs
difficult also
to see
" the mole the expression should be translated of self-seekinor." It is not so much self-seekingr as
why
personal impulse in opposition to acting under the " The prison of wilful inspiration of the divine will.
"
impulse
writer.
seems nearer
to the
meaning of the mystical
The shadowy
third book.
to Gence, towards the
reference to Virgil occurs, according end of the ninth chapter of the
There we have the statement, " Vincit enim omnia divina caritas, et dilatat omnes animae vires." This certainly recalls, by way of a commonbook doubtless, the famous words of the tenth place " Omnia vincit Amor." Chaucer, a coneclogue (69),
temporary of a Kempis,
it
will
be remembered, quoted
them
also.
We have in chapter fifty-four of the third book one possible reference to Horace. The passage
runs boni
"
:
Omnes quidem bonum
appetunt, et aliquid
:
suis dictis vel factis praetendunt ideo sub multi falluntur." Monsignor Puyol refers specie boni " " this to the phrase decipimur specie recti in the
in
De Arte
that
Poetica
(v, 25).
is
This seems somewhat

the same, and
it
far
fetched, but the idea
is
possible
-
here
again
we have a commonplace book
version.
The only
other Latin authors from
whom a Kempis
In chapter twentyquotes are Pliny and Lucan. of book five, three, we have the passage that tells us
184
THOMAS A KEMPIS
is
where true peace

thyself with
all
In surrendering Will not divine heart to the thy seeking thine own in great matters or in small, in time or in eternity so that with unchanged countento
: ;
be found.
"
ance thou abide

adversity
:
thanksgiving, amid prosperity and " weighing all things with equal balance
in
Dr Bigg refers (" omnia aequa lance pensando "). " this to Pliny (i. 7) Is demum profecto vitam aequa
:
lance
pensitabit,
fuerit."
qui
semper
is
fragilitatis
humanae
a likeness of phrase that is possibly not accidental, and may again be referred to the commonplace - book. Dr Bigg is also
inclined to find a reference to Pliny (i. 10, 49) in the sentence at the end of chapter twenty-seven of the same book: "Quia haec magna sapientia est,
memor
There
non moveri omni vento verborum nee aurem male blandienti praebere Sirenae, sic enim coepta pergitur
via secure."
The
similarity can hardly be accidental. reference to Lucan's PJiarsalia is apparently
The
quite direct (i. 135). It is a famous phrase, "the shadow of a great name." It occurs in chapter twenty-four of
" book three Non sit tibi curae de magni nominis umbra et non de multorum familiaritate, et de privata
^
:
hominum
however, thinks that the phrase is borrowed, probably from the first of St Bernard's sermons on the Circumcision, where we read "non est in eo [Jesu] magni nominis umbra,
delectione."
Hirsche,
sed Veritas."
^
It is also used by a Kempis in See the Paris edition of 1494.
his Chronicles.

In addition to these direct
in
185
find
quotations
classical
we
the Imitation
in
Thus
have " in end of chapter twenty-six of the third book we have "inter haec quaeso manus tua me regat et doceat, ne quid nimium fiat." These may once more be
;
proverbs. chapter twenty-four of the first book we omnibus rebus respice finem" and at the
one or two
referred
to
a commonplace
it is
book.
The
classical
references are,
clear,
sparse and obscure enough.
They now growing
are
mere
driblets from the classical reading,
Middle Ages.
if
sadly narrow, of the religious in the They give no hint whatever of the
Renaissance, and their form is evidence enough, evidence of this type were needed, that Thomas a Kempis was absolutely unconscious of anything
of the nature of a Revival of Letters.
They
also
seem
to
me
to indicate that the
book was
actually
written at the beginning
of the
fifteenth century.
Had
more
it
been
later,
references.
we might perhaps have expected Had it been earlier, we cer-
tainly
tions,
should
for
have had an abundance of quotathe early thirteenth century had a large

with polite letters. are echoes of echoes,
reverberated
fainter
acquaintance at any rate

that
All the
we murmur
more
actually get of culture that

till it
and
faint
was
lost in the
remotest monasteries.
When we turn
we
find,
from
classical to mediaeval literature
not
indeed an abundance of quotations,
but a pervading atmosphere of that literature from end to end of the Imitation. St Augustine and St
186
THOMAS A KEMPIS
Bernard are the two great sources from which a Kempis drew, or rather let me say the two great But the influence influences under which he worked.
of the Schoolmen,
faith,
can also be
their philosophy melts into Thus it is just possible traced.
when
that a Kempis, in chapter fifteen of the third book, has been influenced by Scotus Erigena " In manu tua ego sum, gyra et reversa me per circuitum."
:
("I am back ").
in
thy hand spin me forward or spin me Dr Bigg thinks that there may be here a
:
reference to the Vulgate version of Ecclesiastes (i. 6), to which the Subtle Doctor also refers in the words
"
Gyrans gyrando vadit

flectitur
spiritus et in
locum suuni
"
:
revertitur."
The Vulgate
pergit
version runs
:
Gyrat per
suos
meridiem, et
in
ad aquilonem
spiritus,
lustrans universa
circulos
circuitu
et
in
revertitur,"
the text of
interesting
Whether a Kempis had or had not John Scotus in mind the passage is an
and
characteristic
example of
his
method.
The
Scriptural idea, almost the very words of Scripture, are used, but both are applied to new uses
and are organically introduced into a new connection. Dr Bigg has detected two references to St
the fourth book.
Thomas Aquinas, both in The first
is
the thirteenth chapter of the passage, " O, quam
suavis est spiritus tuus, Domine, qui ut dulcedinem tuam in filios demonstrares, pane suavissimo de
Caelo descendente
illos
reficere
"
dignaris
to
"Oh
forth
how Thy
sweet. Lord,
is
Thy
Spirit
who
show
loving-kindness toward
Thy
children, dost deign

to refresh
187
them with the bread of sweetness which cometh down from Heaven." Bigg and Hirsche both
notes
in
refer the passage to the
further
that
AngeHc Doctor.^ Hirsche a Kempis employs the same
quotation
however,
the
is
Book
passage, a combination of passages from Thus of Wisdom and St John's Gospel.

in fact
the Three Tabernacles.
The
in the twelfth
chapter of
Wisdom we have
"
Dulce^
dinem tuam, quam
habes, ostendebat," and in the sixth chapter of the Gospel of St John (verse " Hie est panis de Caelo descendens." 50) we have, Here again then we have an instance of Biblical
in filios
phraseology and ideas brought into a new and a The combination appears, howliving connection.
have been made by the great mind of Aquinas, and to have been adopted by a Kempis. This well illustrates what has been said above as to the Auoûstinian's use of the Bible and of living phrases drawn from it, or from commentators The phrase, the form is the thing, though upon it. no one would more stoutly have denied the insinuaever, in this case to
hand
worthy Canon, sitting "little book" in and enjoying a life of letters in a way and to an extent that few other men have " done. H is phrase, " M ulta verba non satiant animam does not exclude the supposition that he believed (i. 2), " in the spiritual the few best words in the efficacy of best order." A word in due season how good it is. The Angelic Doctor is again quoted in the same
tion than the
in his "little corner,"
^
In
Off. Sacr. vesp.
ad )nagnificat.
See also cap.
xvi. 21.
188
chapter
i^
THOMAS A KEMPIS
"Quae
est
enim
alia
Gens
tarn inclyta
sicut plebs Christiana." this direct from
Aquinas took the form of " ^ Quae est enim alia Deuteronomy
:
gens
The phrase is adopted by a inclyta ? and Kempis, developed and expanded. If there are no such people as the people of Christ there can be no creature so beloved as the Christian soul, fed in
sic
"
the sacrament
by God Himself.
Turning from Aquinas to other mediaeval writers, we find (according to Dr Bigg) two possible
references in chapter four of the second book to two Latin hymns. The chapter opens with the
phrase
"
Duabus
alis
homo
sublevatur a terrenis,
Does this allude simplicitate scilicet, et puritate." to the hymn Ecquis binas columbinas Alas dabit
animcB?
of
this mediaeval
Certainly the trick and jingle of words in hymn were likely to catch the mind
Thomas
a Kempis, which was peculiarly suscep-
any interplay between sound and sense. It is also suggested that the later sentence in the same " si rectum cor tuum esset, tunc omnis chapter
tible to
creatura speculum
esset
" is
:
vitse,
et liber sanctae
doctrinae
Lille
drawn from the hymn by Alain de

"
beginning
Omnis mundi
creatura
Quasi liber et pictura Nobis est et speculum."
Certainly the idea and the phrasing is very similar, and in neither case has the image or the phrase
1
Off. Sacr. Lect.
2
5.
i^.
g.

been traced to the Bible.
189
Kempis, a continual
student of books, must have gathered phrases from all quarters, and it is probable that most of the passages
that
have no
scriptural authority will

in the
be found to
be echoes of striking words
devout literature
of the Middle Ages. It is, however, noticeable that the service books supplied the writer with very
little
material
I
other,
of
course,
than
scriptural
material.
we
n the fourth book, De Sacramento Altaris, have four references to the Gelasian Sacra-
mentary,^ and one reference in chapter fifty-seven of have also at the end of chapter the third book.
We
fifty-five
of the third
book the Oratio

"
:
for the sixteenth
Sunday
gratia
after Pentecost
Tua ergo me Domine
et sequatur, ac bonis This is, of esse intentum," operibus jugiter praestet course, the English collect for the seventeenth
semper
praeveniat
"Lord we pray that Thy grace may always prevent and follow us, and make us continually to be given to all good works, through Amen." Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Sunday
after
Trinity:
The
is
sentence immediately preceding this collect a good instance of the manner in which a
selected his phrases from various biblical " sources. It runs Quid sum sine ea, nisi aridum
Kempis
lignum, et stipes
is
inutilis
ad ejiciendum."
of 1442 has
stipes.
The
slips,
text
unsettled.
The autograph
while
the
Codex Aronensis has

is
i
that stirps
'
See caps,
cap.
3.
suggests the only possible reading, while Hirsche and 3, Big^s Edition. See also lib. Hi. cap. 48 and
Dr Bigg
lib. iv.
190
prefers
to
THOMAS A KEMPIS
retain
slips.
impossible reading. which a Kempis could hardly have been familiar, and its meaning a gift or profit is incompatible
It
is
Slips is, however, an a rare Latin word with
with the context.
Slipes
the reading of the
Codex
Aronensis
it
means, with and carries on the conception of lignum, which On the conveys the idea wood rather than Iree.
at first sight the best reading, for in classical Latin, a log, and this fits in
seems
other hand ligmim is translated Iree when used in St Luke's Gospel (xxiii. 31), where in the sentence
they do these things in a green tree what shall be done in the dry?" the word djy is the
"
For
if
If lignum is intended rendering of aridiim lignum. to mean Iree rather than wood, then slirps is a more reasonable reading than slipes, for it means the
stock
or trunk of a standing tree.

"
:
The passage
what
would then run
Without
a dry tree and a trunk, fit This view is confirmed by a passage from Isaiah in the mind (xiv. 19), which was almost certainly It runs sentence. when he wrote the k of Kempis
as follows
"
:
am I but [truth] " only to be cast away }

it
Tu autem
quasi
stirps inutilis pollutus."
projectus es de sepulcro tuo Here we have the
very phrase slirps inulilis, while the connection with Iree is emphasised by the fact that the phrase velul lignum aridum, with that meaning, occurs in
Ecclesiasticus
(vi,
3).
Of course
the difiiculty
may
have arisen
a Kempis
consequence of the practice pursued by e may have written of playing with words.
in

sî/>s,hcLVing the idea of a valueless
191
reward
in his
mind,
while he still desired to carry on the conception of dead wood or a dead tree (conveyed by the word /z--
num), by the words stipes or stirps. The literary artist who plays with words habitually runs the danger of
such a
is
The really interesting point, however, we get a combination of phrases from a combination Ecclesiasticus, Isaiah, and St Luke
slip.
that there
the peculiarities of the literary methods pursued by the author of the Imitation. There are still other sources to be considered
that brings out
all
before
we
We
the
have
in
turn to St Bernard and St Augustine. chapter nine of the second book the
of St Laurence and
in
account given
martyrdom Emperor Valerian

is
by St Maximus of Turin of the Pope Sixtus under

258
it
a.d.^
The
value of
the reference
in the light
The read by a Kempis. illustration by an obscure writer would
throws on the works choice of such an obscure
seem
to
indicate a mind steeped in the less obvious literature But that a Kempis had any of the Middle Ages. knowledge of the Apocalypse of Peter can perhaps
hardly be inferred from his statement of the doctrine so fully developed by Dante, that each sin is punished by the thwarting of the desire that lies behind the
But the twenty-fourth chapter of the first sin. book shows that a Kempis was fully familiar with
the doctrine
^
"
In
quibus
homo
peccavit,
in
illis
I.
See Bigg's edition of The Imitation^ p. 117 (.), and Hotn. Sancto Laurentio also Lives of the Saints^ August 10.
;
de
192
THOMAS A KEMPIS
This doctrine is clearly taken gravius punietur." from the eleventh chapter of the Wisdom of Solomon :^ " Wherewithal a man sinneth, by the same also shall
he be punished
torquetur
").
"
(" per
quae peccat
a
quis, per
Dante
and
Kempis
haec et needed no
apocalyptic Gospel to teach them the lesson that the unhappy Francesca framed in deathless words, for it
lies
deep
in the
"
humanity of all men Ed ella a me Nessun maggior

:
dolore
Che
ricordarsi del
^
tempo
felice
Nella miseria."
Dr
and
Big-g has pointed out the

in
resemblance between
a passage
the fourth chapter of the fourth book one in the Celestial Hierarchy (i. 13) of the
" Et si necdum totus coelestis et Kempis writes tam ignitus ut Cherubim et Seraphim esse possum,
:
If this was used, as Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagus. it very probably was, by a Kempis, it was taken from the ninth-century version of Scotus Erigena. Thomas
conabor tamen devotioni
insistere,
et
cor
meum
praeparare, ut vel modicam divini incendi flammam, ex humili sumptione vivifici Sacramenti conquiram."
This idea springs from the conception of Dionysius " Deinde easdem sanctissimorum Seraphim edoctus
:
est deiformes
quidem ipsorum cogDante ^ expresses, nominatione, quod est ignitum." drawing his conception rather from Dionysius than
virtutes,
sacra
Gregory, exactly the idea of a Kempis.

1 ^
The cherubim
Ver. 16 (Vulgate, ver. 17). inferno (canto v., 11. 120-23). ^ II Paradiso, canto xxviii., 11. 25-27, 98-102.

"
193
and seraphim are an intense " cerchio d'igne circling immediately round the flaming heart of the universe.
So
intense
Beatrice
their light, so sublime their vision, that likens them to God Himself. To the
is
knowledge of God and the love of God as represented by the Cherubim and the Seraphim the But by endeavouring to Disciple cannot attain. attain a state of true devotion, and by preparation of the heart, he can reach some measure of knowledge and love a tiny flame of that divine fire which forms
the central light of things. Kempis is as terse as Dante himself, and feels as deeply the mediaeval sense of almost physical illumination which the
realism of the Pseudo-Dionysius, Gregory, Scotus Erigena, the first father of Scolasticism, and Anselm,
its
second
father, created in their efforts to identify
the worlds of reason and revelation.
Anselm himself indeed appears to have contriIn chapter buted one direct idea to the Imitation.
thirty-eight of the third
"
book we have the passage

reliquit
in
Qui
[Deus]
nil
inordinatum
sua
creatura."
this "
Dr
with the
much reason, compares from the Cur Deus Ho7no ^ passage

Bigg, with
:
Deum
vero non decet aliquid
in
is
dinatum dimittere." Anselm. It is also noticeable that the conception of the natural freedom of the sons of God, " qui stant super praesentia et speculantur aeterna," is a conception used by Dante in the canto (vii.) of the
idea
' i.
The
suo regno inorcertainly that of
12.
194
THOMAS A KEMPIS
Anselm
is
Paf'adiso where the influence of
apparent
beyond doubt. Can a Kempis have been acquainted It is certainly a temptation to with the Comedy ?
suggest that he had read the famous Hne in the third canto
Paradiso.
The
E la sua
is
volontate e nostra pace
a continual motive
in this structure of ecclesiastical
music.
notable
instance
one instance amonsf
many
of an elaborate use of the deep feeling under-
lying the line, is to be found in the Prayer at the end of It is a prayer the fifteenth chapter of the third book. for the complete fulfilment of God's will which declares
that the unity of will that such unity alone
sit et
must bring unity with God, and

is
"
peace.
Tua
voluntas
mea
mea
ei
concordet.
voluntas tuam sequatur semper, et optime Sit mihi unum velle et nolle tecum, nee
velle
et
nolle,
nisi
aliud
nolis.
.
posse
.
.
quod
vis,
et
mihi super omnia desiderata in te Tu vera quiescere, et cor meum in te pacificare. omnia sunt tu te sola extra dura pax cordis, requies,
et inquieta.
Da
Te uno summo
quiesciam."
If
In hac pace, in idipsum, hoc est, in et aeterno Bono, dormiam et re-
Kempis
did not
know
the
work of
Dante, he must at any rate have followed out the same line of contemplative thought, and must have been a child of the same spiritual ancestors. For it is not only in the solitary line quoted, but in the
whole of Piccarda's speech that the resemblance

apparent.
'
is
She says
Mr
^
:
"
Brother, the quality of love
Philip Wicksteed's translation.
'..]i*a^
iVh-'
ii
-7"*\\"'
'.".
."I
"*"*!
it-u
don anD fdlowipngc tl)C bklfcD )Lptc ot ourc mode mcrcpfull âuôucc tciftc : comp?lco (nilatcti bp
mztiqfyt tbojnjppftil!
octo?
dufullDctiout anD goaclp
tccatyfe of tfje
Umpfa
âretlpbfi <15ec
fomano tcanCIatc mto Cuglptf^ctfClje pcre ot putj;

o Io?De.^.3.<i.i3p mapaccttjyllpanKltl^pnfon comauti anD of requcfl; Diuinitetat cto? tJ^c fpecpall
Dement of
tljc full excellent ^?pnce(fc ârgatctc moDec to ouc ôuecapne lojDc Itpnge J^cncp ti^c. tit.aD Countcifg of lapctiemount auD jDccbp.
WOODCUT A PIETA IROM THK lllol ENGLISH FIMTION OF THK TREATISE "DE IMITATIONE CHRISTI" ISSUKU 1\ LONDON" l;\
RICHARD
l'^^soN, vm.

stilleth
195
and maketh us long only for what we have, and giveth us no other thirst. Did we desire to be more aloft, our longings were discordant from His will who here assorteth us, and for that, thou wilt see, there is no room within these circles, we have our being here in love, if of necessity and if thou think again what is love's nature. Nay,
our
will,
the essence of this blessed being to hold ourselves within the Divine will, whereby our own wills
'tis
are themselves
that our being thus, from threshold unto threshold throughout the realm, one.
is
made
So
who draweth and His will is our our wills to what He willeth is that sea to which all moves that it it peace Here is set forth createth and that nature maketh." the great end of the Contemplative, the physical and spiritual goal at which the Augustinian Platonism aimed, and in the contemplation of which the most modern thinkers find the reconciliation of philosophic It was realised as a living fact by contradictions. Dante in the year 1 300, and again by a Kempis a century later. As the struggling spirit comes within sight of the goal, we seem to hear Human Knowledge saying (in the words of the Moral Play
a joy to
all
the realm as to the King,

;
"
Now hath he made ending Methinketh that I hear angels sing And make great joy and melody,
;
Where Everyman's
^
soul shall received be."
Everyman,
1903).
line
890
(F. Sidgwick's edition.
H. H. Bullen,
London,
196
If
THOMAS A KEMPIS
a
Kempis had not studied the works
of Dante,
the extraordinary resemblance of thought and even of form must be due to the common indebtedness
to St Bernard,
who profoundly
consummate
influenced the
artists.
mind
Philip
of each
of these
Mr
Wicksteed has pointed out that in Bernard's treatise On lovmg God it is his "consistent doctrine that the blessedness of heaven is found in the complete
absorption of the soul in God, self-consciousness being, as it were, replaced not by unconsciousness With St Bernard as but by God-consciousness."
with Dante and a Kempis, it is body, soul, and spirit that must yearn for self-recognition the entire man
in
Oh how true," says St the recognition of God. " did he speak who said that all things work Bernard,
!
"
together for the good of them that love God the soul that loveth God, its body availeth in
To
its
infirmity, availeth in its death, availeth in its resurrecfirst for the fruit of penitence, second for tion And rightly doth repose, third for consummation.
;
the soul not will to be

it
made perfect without that which feeleth hath in every state served it in good things."^ In this place it will be convenient to refer to the
quotation at the end of chapter fifty of book three from Saint Bonaventura's Legenda S. Fra7tcisci. It
is
natural that a
Kempis should have been a student
of both these personalities, for the fact fits admirably in with the whole tone of the Imitation, dind particularly
^
// Paradiso, canto xiv.,

(J-
Mr
P.
H. Wicksteed's note on
lines 64-6,
pp. 177-9
M- Dent, London,
1899).

with the precise aspect of the work that I am St Francis was an unlearned considering,
197
now man
whose whole gospel was the gospel not of faith, but of love. Mr Wicksteed has finely pointed out that Francis embraced poverty "for pure love of her; that is to say, from a sense that the more we have, the less we can be, and a passionate joy in coming This into naked contact with God and nature,"^ that seemed was a one that Bernard shared, joy joy to dominate his whole nature, and a Kempis was not far behind Francis and Bernard in their aspiration for personal relationship with God. Bonaventura, a contemplative nearer to Hammerlein's time, likewise joined in this desire, and set forth the pricelessness of such a relationship in his Sti7nulus Amoris. Bonaventura says of Francis, " He studied, as
Christ's disciple, to
become
vile in his
other men's eyes, remembering how it by our great Master, That which is highly esteemed amongst men is abomination in the sight of God.
own, and in had been said
He
is
was wont,
too, to repeat
is
latter
in God's sight, that phrase that a

"
:
a saying. What everyone he and no more!' ^ It was this
work
Kempis incorporated into his nam quantum unusquisque est in oculis tuis,
et
non amplius, ait humilis sanctus Franciscus." This sentence lays stresson thenecessity of oneness of will between created and Creator, and
tantum
est
is
full
of the spirit of St Bernard.

'
It
is
curious,
// Paradiso, note to canto xii. Bigg's edition of the Imitation, note, p. 300.
198
THOMAS A KEMPIS
it
was this very passage that dissipated the claims of St Bernard to the authorship of the Imitation. That it must do so is of course obvious, for Francis hved and Bonaventura wrote long after Bernard's death. But this fact was not noticed
therefore, that
when
the claim in favour of the Bernardian author-
The manuscripts of the ship was put forward. Musica Ecclesiastica type with which I have
especially
words
another chapter omitted the " "ait sanctus Franciscus and so possibly
dealt
in
confused the issue and enabled the advocates of St
Bernard
in
introduced.
words had been improperly work was attributed comparatively early manuscripts to St Bernard
to allege that the
It is certain
that the
but the fact that the very earliest manuscripts, such as the Burney Codex 314 in the British Museum, contain the words " ait humilis sanctus Franciscus,"
entirely disposes of his claim. The reference to St Francis
is
indeed strong
evidence
in favour of the authorship of a Kempis, for the Augustinian in his little book entitled Manuale Monackorum a tract containing short sermons or addresses considered suitable for the professed and
in structure
extremely like
^
many
of the shorter chap-
ters of the Imitation
deals with the humility of St
" Francis. This chapter (v. ) is entitled de magna humi"Hie litate Sancti Francisci," and runs as follows
:
est qui contempsit

et
1
vitam mundi quid fecit humilem sanctum Franciscum tam devotum et deo dilectum
chapter from The Garden of Roses, Appendix
ii.
Cf. also the
hereto.

in
199
hac
vita, et
tam altum
in gloria.
Vere profunda
humiltas sua, et quia inter omnia beneficia divina et exercitia cotidiana passionem Christi et sacra vulnera
doloris ei
immensi amoris plena
in
mente portavit
recoluit condoluit gravissime ponderavit amarissime flevit et ardentissime amavit. magna gratia
Nam
confertur humilibus et passionem Christi cotidie Verus enim humilis non se reputat recolentibus. bonis de nee elevat quae facit sed omnibus viliorem
se estimat et cunctis inferiorem veraciter confitetur.
Hie propria mala sua inspicit et plangit et aliorum bona videns congaudet pro quibus Deum laudat et
benedicit, orans ut sui misereatur et a malis liberet."
In this characteristic passage is to be found both The the spiritual and literary note of the Imitation.
conclusion of the conclusion of this
ful
fiftieth
little
chapter might well be the Yet it is not wondersermon.
that the early copyists

It is
and printers attributed the
saturated with his thoughts work to St Bernard. and phrases in combination with those of St It will be useful first to consider some Auofustine. of the references to Augustine and then to pass to
the influence of Bernard. In the third chapter of the first book, the chapter de Doctrina Veritatis, Dr " Felix quern Bigg sees in the opening sentence, Veritas per se docet, non per figuras et voces
transeuntes, sed sicuti se habet," a direct reference to the memorable and inspired passage in the Confessions of St Augustine where the Saint and his
mother Monica, as they leaned together one evening
200
THOMAS A KEMPIS
window
in the
against a ledge of a
house
at Ostia,
passed from sweet converse into a vision of the The passage must be quoted, as presence of God.
certainly underlies not only the Augustinian's doctrine of truth, but the whole of his mystical revelation of the Way. " If the tumult of the flesh were hushed hushed
the
spirit
of
it
these shadows of earth, sea, sky hushed the heavens and the soul itself, so that it should pass beyond
;
and not think of itself; if all dreams were hushed, and all sensuous revelations, and every if all that comes and tongue and every symbol goes were hushed They all proclaim to him that hath an ear We made not ourselves He made us who abideth for ever But suppose that, having
itself
; '
:
'
delivered their message, they held their peace, turning their ear to Him who made them, and that He
alone spoke, not by them but for Himself, and that we heard His word, not by any fleshly tongue, nor by an Angel's voice, nor in the thunder, nor in any
similitude, but
His voice whom we love in these His Suppose we heard him without any intermediary at all Just now we reached out, and with one flash of thought touched the Eternal Wisdom that abides above all Suppose this endured, and all other far inferior modes of vision were taken away, and this alone were to ravish the beholder, and absorb him, and plunge him into mystic joy, might not eternal life be like this moment of comIs not this the prehension for which we sighed ?
creatures
WOODCUT REPRESENTING THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI FROM THE PARIS EDITION OF THE TREATISE " DE IMITATIONE CHRISTI" ISSUED
:
IN
1496
BY GEORCHUS MITTELHUS.

meaning of Enter thou Ah, when shall this be ?
'
201
'
into the joy of thy
Lord
Shall
it
be when
'
we
shall
all rise,
be changed ? ^ may doubt if Bernard, Dante, Francis, Bonaventura, a Kempis, or any mediaeval dreamer ever rose to this height, ever realised as Augustine
but shall not
all
"
We
realised the spiritual fact, as
opposed to the philo-
sophic dream or the theological conception, of the What Plotinus "flight of the alone to the Alone."
conceived,
Augustine
felt,
and thus crowned the
philosophy of Alexandria, subtly compounded of Greek and Hebrew thought, with a personal realisaIt is tion of its profoundest speculative surmise.
that such experiences were claimed in the Middle Ages, that Bernard himself was declared to have conversed in the flesh with God, seeing Him in His very essence i^per essentiani) while yet alive. Dante tells us that Bernard in this world tasted of the Peace of God by contemplation
true
:
"
Che
in questo
mondo,
{Par. Canto xxxi.)
Contemplando, gusto
di quella pace."
But Bernard's words that
follow,
though written
by Dante, leave us cold compared with Augustine's almost inarticulate picture of the vision that eludes
him.
It
is
something
more
than
art.
It
is
positive experience
a story that
told.
Enoch
returning might have

intercourse with
in the
The
or Elijah vision of direct
God
loses the appearance of reality

is
Middle Ages, and

^
cold indeed in the
mind of
Ur
Bigg's translation
(Methuen
&
Co., London).
202
THOMAS A KEMPIS
in the
!
Anselm, who conceives a colloquy

of
presence
It was as to the duty of obedience to God of revival the fourteenth mysticism in century only England and the Netherlands that made it possible
God
for a
Kempis
to
conceive even in a measure the

indirect
intense reality of the Augustinian vision. The next reference to Augustine an
one
which
is
in
Kempis
is,
chapter three of the third book, where a uses a quotation from Jeremiah (xxiii. 24)
as
Dr Bigg
:
has pointed out, a favourite

"
text with St Augustine

I
Thou givest
all, fillest all."
the
n book one, chapter two, of the Confessions we have same quotation " Whither can I fly beyond
:
heaven and earth, that my God who hath said I fill heaven and earth [coelum et terram ego impleo]
should thence come into me."
It is
noticeable that the short passage

es,
"
Tu
solus
bonus
Justus et sanctus,
Tu omnia
potes,
omnia
praestas,
(xviii.
omnia imples,"
is
reminiscent of
Luke
bonus nisi solus Deus), Maccabees Solus 24, Justus), Kings (lib. i. ii. 2, Non (lib. est sanctus, ut est Dominus), Job (xlii. 2, omnia
19,
i.
Nemo
ii.
potes),
Timothy (Ep.
i.
v. ij,
and
Jeremiah (xxiii. 24, Art and serene patience could no further impleo). Yet this was the manner and method of the p-o.
work.
praestat nobis omnia), Coelum et terrain ego
artist in all his
He
built with the patience
and success of the coral insect. patience which he recommended

than upheld himself.
That dignity of to others he more

I
203
somewhat minor illustration of the deep keynote both of the methods to literary Imitation and the Confessions. The latter opens with the cry, " Thou hast created us unto Thyself, and our That is heart finds no rest until it rests in Thee." the end of the following of Christ, whether the way
turn from this
be mapped by Augustine or a
twenty-first chapter of the third passage that is obviously drawn,
Kempis. In the book there is a as Hirsche has

:
" Quoniam pointed out, from this cry of Augustine quidem non potest cor meum veraciter quiescere, nee totaliter contentari, nisi in te requiescat." These
" are almost the very words of Augustine inquietum est cor nostrum donee requiescat in te." It is no
:
chance selection of phrase. round the idea and is entitled,

in
The
"
chapter
is
built
That we are
to rest
all goods and gifts." Up to this seems at first point sight singularly original. There are two possible references to the Psalms " Ouis dabit mihi pennas sicut columbse, et volabo,
it
:
God above
et
"
requiescam
.'^
(liv.
7),
and,
"
Gustate et videte
Other-
quoniam suavis est wise we have no direct
Dominus"
(Ps. xxxiii. 9). Biblical references.
On
the
other hand, the cross references between this chapter and the rest of the first three books are extremely
numerous, and prove that
it
is
as artificial as any
book
is
one other passage traceable to Augustine All beside Thyself is small and unsatisfying whatsoever Thou bestowest on me or revealest of Thyself or promisest, if Thou
in the treatises.
At
least "
204
THOMAS A KEMPIS
"
satis ostendis,
art not seen nor fully obtained."

this with
rationalem feceris, cui nullo
quam modo
"
Hirsche compares magnam creaturam

sufficit
ad beatam
requiem quidquid
te
minus
est.
In the forty-ninth chapter of the third book we have, as Dr Bigg points out, a further reference to
It is interesting, as it is taken Augustine (vii. 17). from the Wisdom of Solomon (ix, 15), and is also
contained in the Co7ifession.

hnitation runs
:
The passage
to the
in the
"
:
heavenly goodness which treats thee with such condescension which visits thee with mercy arouses thee to fervour sustains thee with power lest through thine own weight thou sink down to earthly things." The passage in the Confessions is curiously parallel " I could not stand still to enjoy my God, but was swept up to Thee by Thy beauty, and again torn away from Thee by my own weight, and fell back with a groan into the world of sense and the was carnal use and wont." The Latin of weight
; ;
Give great thanks
" ne phrase in the l7?iiiaHon is ad terrena in while the labaris," proprio pondere " Confessions it is moxque diripiebar abs te pondere meo." The idea is of course common enough.
the
significant
It is beautifully used by Dante in the third canto of the Paradiso describing the departure of Piccarda
:
"e cantando vanio
Come
per acqua cupa cosa grave."

^
Confessions
(xiii. 8).

But both
in
205
is
Augustine and a Kempis the use

It
**
somewhat
artificial.^
obscures the conception of

if
God's universahty both of position and influence I go down to hell Thou art there also," Psalm 139
and
lacks the logical sequence so passionately developed by Dante the results that follow from any attempt
to fly
It
is
from the enveloping presence of the Almighty. not, however, by particular passages that
we test the influence of the monk of Hippo. The debt of a Kempis to Augustine is in a sense intangible, not to be measured by literary quotations or verbal borrowings. It is, if one may say so, a
He philosophic rather than a Christian debt. borrows the cry wrung by the heart from the intelligence of the created being, whether Christian
the cry of the Greek rather than of the Hebrew, the cry of the man who found the answer to his cry in the Gospel of the
or not, to the Creator.
It is
disciple
whom
to a
queathed
Jesus loved. Augustine in fact bethe Plotinianism of Victorinus Kempis
Afer. It is possible to think that it was of Victorinus as revealed by the Confessions (viii. 2) that a Kempis wrote in the forty-eighth chapter of the third book
"
Blessed
is
the
man who
leave
;
for
Thy
sake, Lord, gives

;
all
created
to
violence
things nature
to
depart
flesh
who does
that so with
and through fervour of the

;
:
spirit crucifies the lusts of the

2
" Cf. Eckhardt's sentence Deadly sin is also a sickness of the faculties, when a man can never stand up alone for the weight of his W. R. sins, nor ever resist following into sin" {Light, Life, and Love
:
Inge, p.
9).
206
THOMAS A KEMPIS
may
offer a
serene conscience he
pure prayer unto
and may be worthy to stand among the choirs angehcal, where no earthly thing can find a
:
Thee
place of those that are within or those that are Here is a note not altogether Christian without."
here, but altogether Plotinian.
He
is
not entirely
a Christian, even in the mind of a Kempis, " qui The non -natural world of naturae vim facit."
Alexandrian philosophy, the

this
city of
God which
"
"
!
in
very
chapter
Kempis apostrophises
has for the Supernae Civitatis mansio beatissima most part been brought into accord with Christian doctrine as revealed by the New Testament to But a Kempis is never the mediaeval mystic.
primarily a naturalist, he does not instinctively think, with the greatest of the schoolmen, that the world of nature and the world of revelation have
same ultimate contents. The mysticism of the Alexandrian Greek presents to him at every turn a God who is aloof and alone, approachable only A Kempis was along the narrow way of Christ,
the
an Augustinian in heart as well as in habit an Alexandrian born a thousand years too late yet because he was too late, he is immortal, for the spiritual struggle of the millennium that separates
him and Augustine

Imitation.
is
reflected in every
The
fact
page of the remained, and not even a

it,
Kempis
could
ignore
that
the
passage of a
nearer to the
that
thousand years had brought

Plotinian vision of
men no That Which Is

;
men had

to
207
wandered in the wilderness and found no pathway God, The morasses of sin and disbelief were It was necessary to come down still impassable. to earth and build a causeway across them that should be broad and clear and well fitted for the A pathway to reality was Following of Christ. needed that the simplest soul could follow. The In its place and flight to the Alone had failed. with the same Plotinian ideal, a Kempis substituted a life-long journey, slow and toilsome, over the marshes of time in the very footsteps of the Man of " Nazareth qui sequitur me non ambulat in tenebris,
:
dicit
Dommus
(i.
i)
nam
sanctam patientiam ambulamus ad

nostra.
via tua via nostra, et per te, qui es corona
Nisi tu praecessisses et docuisses, quis sequi curaret ?" (iii. i8).
great spiritual and literary force that so largely modified the outlook of a Kempis was In one sense St the influence of St Bernard.
Imitation, for had
The
Bernard may almost be said to be the author of the it not been for his influence the work of the Augustinian Canon must have shared the fate of the rest of the voluminous mystic literature of the late fourteenth and early fifteenth century.
It
was from a prolonged study of St Bernard's
that a Kempis acquired his peculiar and his deathless appeal to the human note literary The direct and indirect references to the heart.
writings
works of St Bernard
but apart
in the
altogether
Imitation are numerous, from such references, the
208
THOMAS A KEMPIS
manner of the great Abbot of Clairvaux dominates

the style of the treatises, and his pecuHarly direct human spirituaHty, as opposed to the vague yearnings of the Alexandrian school, is visible everywhere.
A few quotations
in the
from St Bernard
which
selected
almost certain belief that they occurred in the Imitatiojt, but which in fact do not occur, will illustrate
this.
phrases
obviously belonging to the hnitation, that I have

at
They appeared
the
to
me
to
so
been
surprised
failure
find
parallel
I believe, however, that many students passages. of the Imitation would attribute them to that work.
1.
Fideli
homini
totus
mundus
:
divitiarum
est
(in vita Malachi). 2. Sit ergo in
ex
et justicia quae corde justicia sola habet gloriam apud Deum (in vigilia nativitatis Domini, Sermone i). bonum vero afflictio 3. Malum voluptas corporis fide est.
Haec enim
est
(Sermone
Quidni
3).
4.
dimmitatur
in
:
pace,
qui
Christum
in pectore ipse enim est pax in cordibus nostris habitat fidem nostra, quae per (in purificatione Mariae, Sermone i). multo 5. Licet multos frangat adversitas, tamen
Dominium habet
plures
6.
extollit
2).
prosperitas
(Dominicae Palmarum,
Sermone
Credimus quae minime sufficimus compraehendere (in feste Pentecostes, Sermone i). 7. Periculosa habitatio eorum qui in meritis suis
'
See Epistles and Sermons^ I494
Theologia Divi Bernhardi^ 1581.

sperant
8,
:
209
i.
periculosa quia
mihi,
ruinosa (Sermon
tribulari,
in
explanatione de Psalmi Qui habebat).
Bonum
sis
Domine,
dummodo
te,
mecum, quam regnare gloriari (Sermone i']\ g. Vae nobis si exultaverimus,

ipse
et pro Christo
10.
sine
sine
te
nisi
in
Christo
(Sermone de verbis
libri sapientiae).
Quid
aliud,
in
quam
vita
aeterna,
tota affec-
tione,
divinam
omnibus sequi voluntatem (Ser:
mone de
1
1.
subjectione nostrae voluntatis). Quidam sapiens ait melior est in malis factis
confessio,
humilis
gloriatio
quam
(cap.
in
2,
bonis
factis
superba
[Gregory]
Sermone de donis
Spiritus Sancti).
12.
Quisquis patientior,
eo probatur esse pru-
dentior (ibid. cap. 7). 13. Scientia secularis, quae

curiositate,
non
caritate implens,
:
stans,
non aedificans
Si
quidem inebriat, sed non nutriens iningurgitans non comfortans

:
(Sermone 9
14.
in Cantica).
scribas, non sapit mihi, nisi legero ibi Si Jesum. disputes aut conferas, non sapit mihi, nisi sonuerit ibi Jesus. Jesus mel in ore, in aure
melos,
in
corde
15).
jubilus.
Sed
crucis
25).
est
et
medicina
crucihxo
(Sermone
15.
Grata
ignominia
est
ei,
qui
ingratus non
16.
(Sermone
Peccavi peccatum grande, turbatur conscientia,
sed non perturbabitur, quoniam vulnerum recordabor (Sermone 61). o
Domini
210
1
THOMAS A KEMPIS
7.
Magnum bonum quaerere Deum (Sermone 84).

Ubi amor
85).
est,
18.
labor
non
est,
sed
sapor
(Sermone
19.
Si te Christus agnoscit in bello recognoscet in coelo (Epistle 3).
Dei sunt munera, tam nostra opera, quam ejus praemia (Tractatu de Gratia et libero arbitrio). 21. Felix (ut quidam sanctorum ait) necessitas, quae cogit in melius (Tractatu de praecepto et
20.
dispensatione).
22.
Voluntas
Dei).
facit
usum
est,
(in epistola
ad
fratres
de
Monte
23.
Cum
Vere
quo Deus
solus est
solus
nunquam minus
solus est,
quam cum
24.
(in epistola
{ibid.).
est,
ad
fratres
cum quo Deus non de Monte Dei).

vivimus,
tanto
plus
est
25.
Quanto
amplius
pec-
camus, quanto vita est longior, tanto culpa numeriosior (in Meditionibus, cap. 2). 26. Omne tempus, in quo de Deo non cogitas, hoc te computes perdidisse [ibid. cap. 6).
27.
Notitia
).
peccati
initium
est
salutis
{ibid.
cap.
1 1
28.
Non
Multi
nocet sensus,
ubi
non
est
consensus
vero con-
(in tractatu 29.
de
interiori
domo,
cap. 19).
quaerunt
scientiam,
pauci
scientiam (cap. 21).

30. 31.
32.
Qui Qui
sibi displicet,
sibi vilis est,
Deo placet (cap. 28). Deo carus est (cap. 29).

esto (cap. 45).
Qualis haberi
vis, talis

Sit
tibi
211
quoque Jesus semper in corde et nunquam imago crucifixi ab animo tuo recedit. Hie tibi sit cibus et potus, dulcedo et consolatio tua, mel tuum et desiderium tuum, lectio tua et meditatio tua, oratio et contemplatio tua, vita mors et resurrectio tua. 34. Ignorantia nox est, fides vero dies (see Clement and Theologia Divi Bernhardt). All the ideas contained in these passages, and in many others which occur throughout the epistles and sermons, are reflected in the Imitation, while the alliterative and often almost punning style is
so
closely akin to that of a
Kempis
that
it
is
at
first sight almost indistinguishable from his. But when we pass to phrases actually adopted from Bernard by a Kempis, we see at once how great is the indebtedness both of idea and style. Dr
Bigg has collected

translation
in
footnotes
to
his
valuable
some of the more important
references,
and
shall follow these here.

first
book a Kempis Little Alphabet of a Monk the phrase ania nesciri et " pro nihilo reputari in the passage si vis utiliter alta
of the
scire et discere,
In the second chapter has transferred from his
ama nesciri, et pro nihilo reputari." The words ama nesciri 2.x^ St Bernard's,^ and formed, we are told, a favourite phrase among the Brothers
of
Common
In the
"
Life.
In any case
it
exactly expresses
their ideal.
fifth
passage
chapter of the same book we have the Omnis Scriptura Sacra, eo spiritu debet legi
1
Mabillon's edition
(i.
782).
212
THOMAS A KEMPIS
facta est."
quo
a sentence in
This is identified by Hirsche with an epistle of William, Abbot of St

:
" ^ Theodoric, given by Bernard quo enim spiritu scripturae factae sunt, eo spiritu legi desiderant."
Hirsche again suggests that the passage in the seventh chapter, '* Non nocet ut omnibus te supponas,
nocet autem plurimum
si
vel uni te praeponas,"
is
in
thought suggested by St Bernard.-
The whole
of
chapter twenty of the first book may be compared with the Golden Epistle of St Bernard. In the first chapter of the second book we have a passage a in most fashion from Isaiah, complex compounded
St John, Micah, and St Bernard.

sapiunt omnia prout
sunt,
It
runs
"
:
Cui
aut
non
est,
ut
dicuntur
et doctus magis Hirsche has pointed out that the beginning of this passage is from a ^ "est enim sapiens phrase in a sermon of St Bernard cui quaeque res sapiunt ut sunt." This origin is of
aestimantur, hie vere sapiens
Deo quam ab
hominibus."
course
perfectly
obvious,
but
the
conception
of
absolute being independent of opinion or thought did not originate with St Bernard. He was
only the vehicle of such conceptions to a Kempis. The rest of the sentence according to Puyol
is
compounded from the words

liv.
doctos
vi.
a Domino
(Isa.
13), Docibiles Z?^? (John
45),
and Docebit
nos de viis suis (Micah iv. 2). In chapter twelve of the second book
we
get a
long passage based on the

^
first
sermon by Bernard
^
Ibid.
"^
ii.
214.
In cantica sermone, 37.
Ad div.
xviii.

:
213
" Do thou set on the Annunciation of the Virgin them the count tribulations and to endure thyself
for the sufferings of this present greatest comforts time are not worthy to deserve the glory which is to
;
come, even
with
the
"
:
if
thou alone couldst endure them
all."
It is interesting to
compare the Latin of this passage quotation from Bernard indicated by
Hirsche
tiones,
Tu
vero pone te ad sustinendum tribulaconsolationes, quia
et
reputa eas maximas
non sunt condignae passiones hujus temporis ad futuram gloriam quae revelabitur in nobis promerendam, etiamsi solus omnes posses sustinere." The passage in the Sermon on the Annunciation runs: "Jam vero de aeterna vita scimus, quia non
sunt condignae passiones hujus temporis ad futuram Of course, gloriam, nee si unus omnes sustineat"
both passages
are
"
:
based on the
Romans
(viii.
i8)
For
Epistle to the reckon that the sufferings
of this present time are not worthy to be compared " with the glory which shall be revealed to usward but
;
the rest of the extract from the Imitation
is
clearly
from Bernard's sermon.

will
Two other parallel

They One
passages
perhaps
suffice.
are the last of those
indicated by Dr Bigg. occurs at the opening " of the thirty-third chapter of the third book Fili noli credere affectui tuo, qui nunc est cito mutabitur
: :
"Son, trust not to the feeling which is with thee now it will quickly be changed into another." " Bernard
in aliud,
:
has practically the same sentence Noli nimis credere affectui tuo, qui nunc est." Monsignor
:
214
Puyol sees
in
THOMAS A KEMPIS
in this
a reference to the idea contained
the Epistle to the Romans (viii. 20), " Vanitati creatura subjecta est non volens," Whether this is
so or not the conception of St Bernard is developed in the thirty-ninth chapter "Fili mi, saepe homo rem
:
aliquam
agitat,
quam
desiderat, sed
quum ad eam
pervenerit quia affectiones circa idem non sunt durabiles, sed magis de uno ad aliud
aliter incipit sentire,
The conclusion of the whole matter is impellunt." " Non ergo minimum est, etiam in tersely stated
:
minimis se relinquere."
The last parallel I shall note is in the chapter on Divine Love.^ " Magnus clamor in auribus Dei est Deus meus ipse ardens affectus animae quae dicit
:
!
amor meus
Kempis.
tu totus meus,
is
et
This
certainly
ego tuus," says a an echo from St

:
Bernard's sixteenth sermon on Psalm ninety " siquidem in Dei auribus desiderium vehemens clamor
regione autem remissa intentio vox But the fifth chapter has also much in submissa." common with the German mystics who immediately
magnus
preceded a Kempis.
tion that the lover of
It recalls
Eckhardt's declara-
God's prisoner, but the more a prisoner the more free love "suffers nought
is
;
God
to
come near
her,
that
is
not
God
nor
;
God
like.
Happy is he who is thus imprisoned the more thou art a prisoner, the more wilt thou be freed." ^ On the other hand a Kempis declares that love
'
Lib.
iii.
cap.
5.
Light, Life,
and
Loz'e,
by W. R. Inge (Methuen
&
Co.), p. 14.

"carries
lover
215
a burden which
flies,
be held.
no burden. The he is free and cannot runs, and rejoices He gives all for all, and has all in all
is
. . . :
because he rests
.
. .
My
One Highest above all things. Love Thou art all mine, and I God, my
in
:
am all Thine." Both writers at any rate draw from a common source, from the Song of Songs, and it is
some
not perhaps unreasonable to feel that Eckhardt had direct personal influence upon the rapture of
the Augustinian. Eckhardt too
held
which a Kempis humility and the

Franciscan creed.
tells
firmly the based his faith
doctrines
upon
whole
the doctrine of
doctrine
of
in
love,
the
Eckhardt,
his familiar style,
of the colloquy between the great teacher and the faithful beggar in which, answering the question as to what he would do if God threw him into hell,
the beggar replied,
I
"
Even
if
He
threw
me
into hell,
have two arms wherewith to embrace in true humility, which I should place under Him, and with the arm of love I should embrace Him." ^
should
still
Him.
One arm
derived
Eckhardt and a Kempis both from Augustine the full idea of rest in God. Eckhardt, writing of sin, declares that is an unrest of the heart. "deadly sin Everyfind again that
. . .
We
thing can rest only in its proper place. the natural place of the soul is God.
'
But
As
us
St
for
Augustine says,
'
Lord,
Thou
hast
made
Light, Life,
and Love, by W. R.
Inge, p. ii.
216
THOMAS A KEMPIS
is
Thyself, and our heart

"
restless
till
it
finds rest in
thee.'
some book "Above all and in all, O my soul, thou shalt rest in the Lord alway for He is the eternal Rest of For my heart cannot truly rest, nor the Saints. be entirely contented, unless it rest in Thee, and pass above all gifts and all creatures." But it was not from Meister Eckhardt, the
to
: : .
not to think that this inspired extent the twenty-first chapter of the third
It is difficult
Plotinus of the thirteenth century, that a Kempis learnt his mysticism, though some influence may
Eckhardt and a Kempis drew perhaps be traced. from a common source with different results.
Eckhardt evolved a non-Christian philosophy of life, a Kempis compiled a handbook of the Way. Eckhardt absorbed the philosophic element of
Augustine's writings as they passed through the medium of his mind, while a Kempis absorbed the Christian element. They meet only in those transcendental heights where the dualism between Creator and created is abolished, where religion realises the
dogmatism of philosophy.
It is different,
when we
turn from Eckhardt to

It is
probable that those writers affected the actual structure of the Imitation in a way that cannot be attributed to the
Meister, though
it
Tauler, Suso, and Ruysbroek.
might be said with some force
that since the mysticism of Eckhardt was ultimately responsible for so spiritual a treatise as the Theologia Germanica there would be nothing strange if he
Wt!Wi(Wi'"A "^^5:;^'^,.*rî^
^$
ôrgtu$;^t(fdf)u$
WOODCUT ON THK RKVERSE OK THK FLYTHE LEAF WHICH HAS THE WOODCUT MAGI. PARIS EDITION OF THE TREATISE
"DE IMITATIONE CHRISTI" ISSUED IN
BY GEOR(;iUS MITTELHUS.
1496

actually
217
Kempis
The debt of a inspired the Imitation. to Plotinus through Augustine is, however,
it
not necessary to seek his inspiration in a writer who, in the year 1400, was no longer
so clear that
is
read by or even
known
to the faithful Catholic.
when he
Tauler strikes the familiar note of the Imitation tells us that the two mortal sins are pride and
inordinate affection, and the two immortal virtues are humility and absolute submission to God, inordinate
affection, so to speak, for
the
this
first
book
:
very note tur pax vera cordis, non autem serviendo

:
sixth chapter of i^De Inordinatis Affectioyiibus) strikes "Resistendo igitur passionibus invenieis."
Him.
The
The
next chapter completes the rule of life " Jugis pax ciim humili, in corde autem superbi zelus et indignatio
can scarcely be a coincidence that the conception of an earthly battle without which life itself could not reach the highest should be clearly exfrequens."
It
In chapter pressed both by a Kempis and Tauler. "If we would eleven of the first book we read
:
strive like
brave
men
to stand in the battle, surely
we
should see the help of the Lord come upon us from Heaven. For He is ready to succour those that strive and trust in His orrace who eiveth us occasion to fight in order that we may conquer."
:
It very complex in origin. recalls the passage from the Ephesians (vi. 13), " Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God,
first
is
The
sentence
that ye may be able and having done all
to withstand in the evil day,

to stand
"
;
the opening of the
218
THOMAS A KEMPIS
hundred* and twenty-first psalm," " my help cometh from the Lord"; and the twentieth chapter (17) of " Stand firm and thou the Second Book of Chronicles
:
The Latin shalt see the help of the Lord upon you," of the text is woven from the Latin of these three
passages
inspired
;
but the text
itself
^
seems
to
me
to
be
by Tauler's paradox
so necessary for
;
world
is
man
that "nothing in the as to be constantly
assailed
for in fighting
he learns to know himself,"
and by the picture of the conflict in the seventy-fifth sermon " Know of a truth that if thou wouldst truly overcome the evil spirit, this can only be done by a Say then complete manful turning away from sin.
:
thy heart Oh, everlasting God, help me and give me Thy Divine grace to be my help, for it is my steadfast desire never again to commit any
with
all
:
deadly sin against Thy Divine will and Thine honour. So with thy good will and intention thou entirely overcomest the evil spirit, so that he must fly from
thee ashamed."
structural
tion
is
^
To what extent Suso

Yet when
influenced the
form and general conception of the Imitahis Servitor explains to
not clear.
his spiritual
daughter the order of events by which
the spirit should seek to return to God, we seem to find an order of spiritual development followed by
Kempis
in his
all,"
"First of
autograph edition of the hnitation. says Suso, "we should disentangle
ourselves absolutely from the pleasures of the world, manfully turning our backs upon all vices we should
;
Sermon
"
104.
Inge
Lights Life^
and Love
p. 20.

turn to
219
continual prayers, by seclusion, and holy exercise, that the flesh may thus be subdued to the spirit. Next, we must offer ourselves willingly
to endure all the troubles
God by
from God, or from the creatures.

fied
which may come upon us, Thirdly, we must
impress upon ourselves the Passion of Christ cruciwe must fix upon our minds His sweet teach;
His most gentle conversation, His most pure life, which He gave us for our example, and so we must penetrate deeper and advance further in our Imitation of Him, Fourthly, we must divest ourselves of external occupations, and establish
ing,
ourselves
in
a tranquil
stillness
of soul
by an
energetic resignation, as if we were dead to self, and thought only of the honour of Christ and His
heavenly Father, Lastly, we should be humble towards all men, whether friends or foes." Here we have what might almost be called
a
Imitatioii
groundplan of the four tracts concerning the of Christ. Suso's first division almost the admonicoincides in scheme with the first book The later chapters tions useful for a spiritual life.' of this book and the second book cover Suso's His third division coincides with second division.
'
the book
De Sacramento
manuscripts
Altaris
is
the earliest
book which in placed fourth, but which a

the
Kempis
long third
The places third in his autograph copy. book the Book of Internal Consolation
own words concerning
could hardly be better described than in Suso's the fourth stage, by which we
220
THOMAS A KEMPIS
"
must divest ourselves of exand establish ourselves in a occupations, tranquil stillness of soul by an energetic resignation, as if we were dead to self, and thought only of the honour of Christ and His heavenly Father." The latter chapters of the fourth book, and in particular
return to God.
ternal
We
chapter fifty, set forth Suso's fifth division the doctrine of humility. Personally I feel convinced that Thomas a Kempis framed his work on the
It appears to me ground plan devised by Suso. that no coincidence of ideas could account for such a coincidence of structure. Suso had in his mind
the pathway to spiritual reality, the return to
God
of
the spirit which he gave. He actually states that *' this return can only be secured by the Imitation"
of Christ, and he traces a "Way" of which the whole of the hnitation is but an elaboration worked
out by the greatest eclectic that the world of literature has known. The physical shape of the Imitation, so
to speak, was determined by Suso, though its detail, its internal literary form, and its general atmosphere
have
with the not entirely healthy of that writer. composition Thomas a Kempis is most indebted to Suso, with
little
in
common
has attracted the least attention

Altaris.
respect to the details of construction, in the book that the De Sacramento
This is in some considerable measure based on Suso's Meditation on the Passion of Christ. For Eternal Wisdom a Kempis has substituted The Voice
of the Beloved^ while the Servitor becomes The Voice
221
But a Kempis has a restraint of the Disciple. and a dignity not to be found in Suso, and though apparently adopting from time to time the very
phrases of the Meditation, yet constructs a work
It is quite independent and self-contained. perhaps noticeable that in the Meditation occurs
that
is
the phrase "the Imitation of

slothful
If,
Thee
is
grievous to a
and corruptible body." however, Suso supplied the groundplan of the

as
I
Imitation,
cannot but believe,
it
is
certain
that Ruysbroek, in his
Adornment of the Spiritual
Nuptials and other works, supplied checks, modifications, and fundamental ideas. Ruysbroek's division
of
life
into
"the
active
life,
which
is
who would be
to
saved,"
"
the inner
necessary to all life, exalted and
which many men arrive by the virtues loving, and by the grace of God," and " the superessential and contemplative life, to which few attain and which few can taste, because of the supreme
sublimity of this
life,"
is
almost definitely adopted
see this growth of spiritual virtue specifically inculcated. All are necessary to the full life, the complete life, the life which is an
imitation,
by a Kempis.
We
a
is
Ruysbroek
of the life of Christ, following, the corrective of the non-Christian
contemplative ideas adopted from Plotinus and perhaps Eckhardt, and of the super-Christian and unreal physical imitation of Christ put forward
The direct and healthy influence of by Suso. Ruysbroek gives the finishing grace and the intel-
222
lectual
THOMAS A KEMPIS
directness
that
lifts
the Imitation
so
far
above all other works of devotion. But when all is said and done, when we have traced the direct influences that moulded the shape and structure of the four tracts, when we have analysed
the material that goes to the
chapters,
making of the
actual
when we have taken
into consideration the
atmosphere of theology and philosophy, of devotion and opinion that had drifted down the ages into the
age of a Kempis and had penetrated into the minds
of the simple community that was all his life, we are not really in touch with the literary secret that
makes the Imitation a

still
living force to-day,
and
will
make
it
a living force
when
this
day has been
long forgotten.
We
its
may
dissect the
human
body,
we may
its comanalyse ponent parts with a nicety significant of the age in which we live, but we shall get no nearer to the
structure
and ascertain
vital
It is
spark nor capably surmise the origin of life. not hard to tell the sources of the material that a
used, but
it is
impossible to discover how he a work that serenely smiles at the envy of time. The mystery of the Imitation of Christ is not its authorship but its existence. It is
Kempis
built his material into
to-day what Zeiner called it in the year 1487, Tractatus aureus et perutilis de perfecta Imitatio7ie
Ckristi.
THE CONTENT OF THE IMITATION

"\ 7[
^ ^
yHEN
tent
we
turn from the structure to the con-
to the theological, philosophical,
and
find
social
scheme of doctrine
of the Imitation
we
sources from which the writer have been draws, they sought out with definite spiritual and intellectual ends in view. The structure of this beautiful mansion of words is one aspect of the work the spirits of faith, hope, and charity that built it and
that, diverse as are the
;
inhabit
is
it
are another.
The
content of the Imitation

i
'
a consistent scheme of doctrine by which holy living and holy dying are to be brought home to the
heart of every man.
we have to note is that have nothing to do with the scholastic formalism, which was the intellectual armour of the Middle Ages. He himself was not
that
will
The first point Thomas a Kempis
brought up
in
the traditional school of
learning.
Such education as he had was the new education, and though echoes of Scholasticism, of Neo- Aristotelianism have crept into his mind, the methods of thought in which Gerson and the other great doctors of that age were brought up had no place in his intellectual Thomas a Kempis was in no sense a training. Nominalist, while he shows distinct traces of the
223
224
THOMAS A KEMPIS
mystic Realism that followed the reaction from the He was a extreme scholasticism of Duns Scotus.
child of the Brothers of
Common
Life,
so far as his mental outfit went, to
and belonged, the New Age and
he had comparatively little of the New Learning, he had none of the Old, and in his mind the sublety of the Schoolmen received someIf he did not appreciate thing like its true value.
not to the old.
If
its intellectuality,
ness.
that,
He
he at any rate realised its uselesslooked at it absolutely from without, and

is
indeed,
to
my mind
final
and conclusive
argument against the Gerson authorship of the Imitation. Gerson was essentially a Doctor, a lover of the mental process for its own sake, even though he realised the need of simple education and simple But faith if the world were ever to be reformed. cumbrous had no such armour, Kempis and felt a certain Davidian contempt for it. Its efficacy was not apparent to him, and he saw that all who wore it were spiritually hampered at every turn.
fling aside its
Gerson necessarily looked within, even if he strove to
at
Scholasticism
from
armour.
Thomas
Therefore he not only does not attempt to use it but deprecates its use with all his simple might. be useful to extract from the books It will
of the
the Imitation
instances
of
this
contempt
'
for
ponderous obsolete weapons of his age and Church. Consider the first book the admonitions Here we have protest useful for a spiritual life.'
after
protest
against
mere philosophical
thought.

"
:
225
Truly profound words do not make a man holy and just but a virtuous life makes him dear to
Every man naturally desires to know but what avails knowledge without the fear of God ? Better surely is a humble peasant that serves God
God."
^
;
:
"
than a proud philosopher that studies the course of heaven and neglects himself. ... If I understood all things in the world, and were not in charity,
what would
it
help me, in the sight of God,
who
will judge me according to my deeds ? Cease from an inordinate desire of knowledge for therein is found great destruction and deceit. Gladly would those who know seem learned and be called wise.
:
There be many things which to know doth little or nothing profit the soul. Many words do not more and the better thou the soul. The satisfy
:
knowest
vain
the
less thy life
more severely shalt thou be judged unalso be more holy. Be not therefore
art
of any
or
science
but rather fear
for
;
the knowledge that is given thee. Be not overwise but rather confess thy ignorance. wilt thou before since there be prefer thyself any many more
Why
thou wilt
learned than thou, and more skilful in the law? If know or learn anything to profit love to
:
be unknown and to be
little
esteemed."
of this chapter on " the humble conceit " is aimed at vain of ourselves learning, and the
The whole
suggestion
that
his
^
it
might
have
been
2.
written
is
Gerson
P
in
still
I.
retreat at
Lyons,
Cap.
by answered
Cap.
226
THOMAS A KEMPIS
fact
by the
that the
is
nihilo reputari''
'' ama nesciri et pro phrase used elsewhere by a Kempis, and
was a phrase
of
in
common
use
by the
Brothers
Common
The
Life.
chapter contains a direct onslaught on Scholasticism, obviously an attack from without

third
and not a
revolt from within.
"Happy
Our
the
man
whom
truth teaches
:
by
it is
itself,
not by fleeting figures
and words
is
but as
in itself.
:
opinions and
little.
our sense often deceive us
and see but
What
there in lengthy quibbling about dark and profit hidden things when we shall not be reproved at the
;
day of judgment because
we know them
not
It is
great folly to neglect things that are profitable and necessary, and take needless pains for that which is far fetched and hurtful. have eyes and see not
We
and what have we

et
to
do with genera and species
quid nobis de generibus et speciebus .^" This passage should be compared with the Voice of the Beloved speaking against vain and secular
knowledge
"
in
the
the Master of Masters, Christ the Lord of Angels, shall appear, to hear the lessons of all, that is, to examine the conscience of
The
time
will
Book of come when
Internal
Consolation.^
and then will He search Jerusalem with candles and the hidden things of darkness shall be laid open, and the logic of tongues shall be hushed. I am He who in one instant lifts up the humble to more understand mind, reasonings of eternal
every one
: ;
Lib.
iii.
c.
43.
227
Truth, than if one had studied ten years in the I teach without noise of words, without Schools. confusion of opinions, without pride of emulation,
without fence of logic."

the
The
further reference in
"
:
There was one who by loving me in his inmost soul, learned divine truths and spoke marvels. He made greater progress by forsaking all things, than by studying
is
same chapter
:
rather obscure
subtle niceties,"
The
writer of the Imitation doubt-
and though the phrasing might appear to have some application to Gerson, it is inconceivable that the humble suppliant of Lyons could have written in so uplifted a manner. Still it must be admitted that this chapter is written by one who had some contact with scholasticism. No doubt Kempis must have become familiar with the mannerisms of the mediaeval scholar. That he was a tireless student is a well-known fact of his life, and
less refers to himself,
this is consistent
with the references to scholastic
have further learning that so frequently occur. in references definite the third very chapter of the "It wearies me often to read and hear first book.
We
many
all
things
in
Thee
is all
want and
desire.
Let
silence in
Doctors hold their peace, let all creatures keep Thy sight speak thou alone to me ... no
;
speculation of ours is without some darkness .... Truly when the day of judgment comes we shall not
be asked what we have read but what we have done nor how well we have spoken but how religiously
;
:
we have
lived.
Tell
me where now
are
all
those
228
THOMAS A KEMPIS
whom
thou wast well
Doctors and Masters with

in learning?
acquainted whilst as yet they lived and flourished

others possess their livings and In their lifetime they perhaps never think of them. seemed to be something and now they are not
: ;
Now
spoken
world.
of.
O how
:
quickly passes the glory of the

life
that their
their learning been to good purpose. vain learning in this world,
had been answerable to then had their study and reading
How many
who
perish through take little care of
the service of God."
perhaps the most elaborate protest of Kempis against the vain learning of the Schoolmen, " We ought as but we have many other references.
This
is
willingly to read devout
and simple books, as deep
and profound. Let not the authority of the writer move thee, whether he be of small or great learning, but let the love of pure truth draw thee to read. Search not who said this, but mark what is said."
"
Who is
so wise, that he can fully
Be not
therefore too confident in thine
know all things ? own opinion,
but be even glad to listen to the thought of others." ^ " Throw aside subtleties read thoroughly such
;
books,
as
rather
2
stir
compunction,
than
furnish
occupation." shall a clean and good man, than learned philosophy."
"Then
[at the day of judgment] conscience more rejoice a

^
"
So when we have
perused and searched

1
all
be
this the final conclusion.

^
lj]-,
;,
Lib. Lib.
i.
cap.
5.
cap.
g.
i.
cap. 20.
*
,
Lib.
i.
cap. 24.

That through many
the
tribulations,
^
229
we must
turns
enter into
Kingdom of God." The author of the

It
is
Imitation
from the
re-
worship of worldly wisdom with an imperative

pugnance.
ino-
stale
nothino^ either for
and unprofitable, accomplishthe world or for the individual.
not even a shadow of the pattern laid up in It has no relationship to the heavenly heaven.
It is
wisdom.
But despite
this
attitude
towards the
learning of the schools of a Kempis he offers us nevertheless a definite and precious mystical philo" " a profound and blameless mystic sophy. He was,
who gathered up
of ancient and
quality
into his
work the serener elements

mysticism.
mediaeval
its
The
serene
its mind, singularly human outlook has made some very profound students of Christian mysticism name him
of his
perfect balance, and
It is with great respect that I a "semi-mystic." that from differ view, but I am compelled from the evidence of the text to realise that a Kempis had all
the elements of mysticism in his nature, if we take that nature to be adequately set forth in the four
books of the Following of Christ. This is perhaps best seen by drawing from the text its definite body The whole object of the work is of doctrine. It is to set up "the specified in the first chapter.
doctrine of Christ
sophers."
*
"
What
.
" the sayings of all philoagainst is the doctrine of Christ that we
Lib.
ii.
wise
men
See also lib. iii. cap. 31 and lib. iii. cap 34. cap. 12. are poor in Thy sweet wisdom.) of the world
. .
(The
230
THOMAS A KEMPIS
to follow,
?
have
who
is
this Christ that
we have
to
imitate
Is
it
the doctrine of
?
Christ of
Holy Scripture
is
Holy Yes and No.

of
Church, the
The
doctrine
the
doctrine
Holy Church
supplemented by that mystical appreciation of eternal and ever-present mysteries which is the very
life
of the
invisible Church.
The
viewed
Christ
is
the
Scripture through the atmosphere that fourteen centuries of mysticism had woven round the person of Jesus of Nazareth. He
Christ
of
Holy
more than the Christ of history. It is not the mere record of an earthly visitation that we have
is
to
eye is not satisfied with seeing, with hearing. Study therefore to withdraw thy heart from the love of the visible, and to give thyself over to the invisible." ^ The heart must
follow:
"The
nor the ear
filled
not only be withdrawn from outward things but the Love of the visible and things of the mind also.
love of knowledgfe are bracketed togêther. must turn from the Word of Things and the Word of
We
Thoughts to the Eternal Word the origin of all The Word is Christ and Things and Thoughts. ^ God, the unifying principle in creation.
This
as
Mr
Christian Neo-Platonism of a type which, " Inge has pointed out,^ tended to identify the
is
Logos, as the Second Person of the Trinity, with the

Nouf,
'Mind'
or
'Intelligence,'
of
Plotinus,
and
rightly."
Mr
*
Inge,
Lib.
i.
however,
i.
points
^
out that the

i.
cap.
Lib.
cap.
3.
Christian Mysticism^
p. 94.
WOODCUT
TISE
"I)E
IN
rilK KDITION OK THK TREAIMITATIONE CHRISTI " ISSUED FROM VENICE IN 1488.

Plotinian
231
Logos must be distinguished from the Johannine Logos, which is both immanent and
transcendent,
in
that
it
a personaHty as a "'Law' The actual words used by a Kempis may be compared with those used by Erigena (quoted by Mr
Inge) on the same subject,
represents not so much regarded as a vital force."
Erigena says,
"
Certius
cognoscas verbum Naturam omnium esse," while a Kempis states with more completeness and with a
fuller
expression of the
mystic doctrine involved,
et unum loquuntur omnia, hoc est Principium quod et loquitur nobis," (i. 3). Thomas a Kempis, if we take into account the fact that he was a Christian and Plotinus was not, follows
"ex uno Verbo omnia,
et
Plotinus up to a
closeness.
certain
He
is
point with extraordinary not satisfied with the views of
The Erigena, the great Plotinian of the West. a as a also a that and point Kempis mystic practical thinker had to consider was the elaboration of a
method
from the
of
that
should enable the Christian to turn
thing's of the flesh
and the
thino-s of the
mind so as
difficulty,
come within the life-o"ivinof influence the Eternal Word. Plotinus had the same
to
and up to a point solved it in the way adopted by a Kempis. To Plotinus and a Kempis alike it was false mysticism and false philosophy simply to ignore these things. They must be used, not ignored. Simple absorption in the Word was not the end aimed at. The Asiatic Nirvana has no We have our earth attraction for the Western mind.
232
here, our
THOMAS A KEMPIS
human
nature, which
must have a meaning
Mr Inge has in the scheme of things. " The dealt clearly with this position of Plotinus. lower virtues,' as he calls the duties of the average
and a use
'
citizen,
are not
only purgative, but
teach
us
the
measure and rule^ which are divine This is immensely important, for it is the point where Platonism and Asiatic mysticism Mr Inge goes on to point finally part company." out that in Plotinus they do not in fact part company. Plotinus passes on to another logical conclusion which
principles of
characteristics.
renders
world.
his
philosophy worthless to a workaday
But the Christian mystics grasped the posiA Kempis tion at once and left Asia to its dreams. " This should be our business, to conquer declares " In order ourselves (i. 3), and forsake our own will. to do this both outward thing-s and inward thougrhts have to be used. Like all the great mystics, a
:
The use of Kempis was essentially practical. and the love of pure truth ^ worldly wisdom To live truly and are the means first recommended.
^
to think truly
are
the
base of the whole matter.
The
mystic's ladder of perfection, like Jacob's ladder, The greater part of the first has its base on earth.
book of the hnitalion,

stated,
is
after the initial doctrine of the
All-creating, All-pervading
in
Word has
been definitely
occupied But this basis Scala Perfectionis can be set up. of holy living is merely a means to a consummate
*
creating a base on which the
Lib.
i,
cap.
4.
m,
âp.
5.

end.
233
Thomas a Kempis held as strongly as any Syrian monk of the fifth century one aspect of the " doctrine laid down by the so-called Hierotheus,"
the master of the Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite.
me," says Hierotheus, "tome it seems right to speak without words, and understand without
"To
knowledge, that which is above words and knowledge. This I apprehend to be nothing but the mysterious silence and mystical quiet which destroys consciousness and dissolves forms. Seek, therefore, silently and mystically, that perfect and primitive union with this Arch-Good." Thomas a Kempis disclaims this Asiatic apprehension of what the approach of God
meant.
It
did not
mean
the
destruction of con-
sciousness and the dissolution of form.
He
felt, in-
knowledge was contained in the Eternal all truth. But this universal solvent of ignorance and darkness was to be found not by losing the Ego in Christ but by moulding the Ego on the pattern of Christ. Thus, beginning with a
deed, that
all
Word as
well as
mystic conception of Christ, the personality

justify the faith in this conception to the life of Christ as set forth in
is
led to
by an approach
The
the
Holy Scripture. Christ of the mystic is ultimately justified by It is the imitation of the Christ of history.
scientific
process of the
spiritual
mind
of
transferred
to
the
coloured
experience by philosophic inquiry slowly evolved a hypothesis that seemed to render possible the
sphere.
religious
Ages
intimate approach of the solitary soul ot
man
to the
234
THOMAS A KEMPIS
;
seemingly solitary but all-pervading and all-loving Soul of Things that seemed to make " the flight of " the alone to the Alone a fact, and a fact that does
not involve the loss of personality or of the sense of responsibility. Such an hypothesis was one
among innumerable hypotheses. How could truth be tested ? The Imitation of Christ is
answer of the mystic
;
its
the
the imitation or the following of the Christ of history proves, he says, that the
hypothesis of mysticism is the only true solution of the mystery of the spiritual life. Faith begins by an experiment which leads to a hypothesis and concludes with an experience which is a demonstration. It may be said that the demonstration is not complete,
inasmuch as the following of Christ is a counsel of The reply to perfection to which no man can attain.
such a criticism
is
that the perfect following of Christ
would
be a complete demonstration, since experience shows that the nearer the approximation of
in fact
the individual to the
life
of Christ the
more nearly
is
the hypothesis confirmed. There is nothing in the of to show that there is any experience humanity stage of approximation that denies the hypothesis.
very truth never contradicted in spiritual experience any more than the hypothetical law of
It
is
in
the inverse square is contradicted in physical experiTo a reasonable mind the solution of the ence.
apparently irreconcilable dualism (the conception of which is almost innate in every human mind) is brought about by an experience which reasonably
235
demonstrates the mystical hypothesis that haunted the minds of the deepest thinkers even in days
before there was a Christ to imitate, and
made Him,
when He came, the inevitable pattern once laid up in heaven, but now brought down to earth for all
peoples
is
in
all
ages to imitate.
That the
imitation
in nearly all cases desperately remote need not be a cause for despair, since, when all is said and done, every man in the world is impelled, even against his
will or
perhaps his knowledge, dimly to
feel
after
Christ. The beginning of the experience which is a demonstration is to be found there as surely as one can foresee in the cave scrawlings of the troglodytes
the
frescoes of
Michael Angelo.
Therefore the
imitation of Christ throug^hout the darkness of the
Middle Ages was the fundamental idea of the invisible and mystical Church, and therefore Thomas
a Kempis, in his four books concerning the imitation of Christ, lays down the rules of human conduct and human thouo-ht that made the grrowth of the experience which is a demonstration, possible.
Having in the first book laid down the doctrine of the Word, he sets forth his admonitions useful for
a spiritual life. First, earthly desires, the desires of the flesh great and small, must be resisted, not obeyed.^
Resistance to desire must be followed by humility. " ^ Unfailing peace is with the humble," and peace is
a
necessity of the Inner
is
men
inexpedient
*
Way. Familiarity with "Soli Deo et Angelis eius opta

*
Lib.
i.
cap.
6.
Lib.
i.
cap. 7.
236
THOMAS A KEMPIS
(i.
familiaris esse
8)."
tion
is
to
be desired.
Earthly obedience and subjecSpeech must be carefully
watched and guarded. Peace must be sought by minding our own affairs and looking rather to eternal than to temporal things. We shall thus have "some
Good conexperience of heavenly contemplation." duct is the great source of the necessary peace.
^
Earthly crosses are good, for they make man turn rather to God than to man. Temptation must not
only be shunned but fought with the weapons of In order to crush out all patience and humility.
self-interest in dealing with
others one must con-
sciously seek from God the judicial mind. Everyis done must be done well and done that thing
"
charitably
Multum
in
facit,
qui
facit."
^
multum
diligit.
Multum
larly
facit qui
rem bene
"
We
must not
only be judicial
charitable
:
dealing with others but singuhow seldom we weigh our
neighbour
In the
in the
same balance with ourselves."^
chapter on the Monastic Life set out in a phrase, the high Christian note
little
we
"
;
have,
Thou
camest to serve, not to govern." The way to imitate Christ cannot, however, be shown only by precepts. We must see how others followed Him and learn the " The Saints and friends of Christ way from them. served the Lord in hunger and thirst, in cold and nakedness in labour and weariness, in watchings and fastings, in prayer and holy meditations, in
;
many
^
persecutions
i.
and
^
reproaches.
i.
All
cap. i6.
day
Lib.
cap. n.
Lib.
cap. 15.
Lib.
i.
237
they laboured, and in the night they found time for long prayer, although while they laboured they
ceased
their
not
time with profit
from mental prayer. They spent all every hour seemed short
;
waiting upon God."^
Concerning those saints and
friends of Christ we are told in a singularly beautiful " Mundo erant alieni, sed Deo proximi et phrase, To imitate them is to imitate familiares amici."
Christ.
:
But imitation
"
is
the
result of
an inward
process According to our purpose shall be the course of our growth the purpose of the just depends not upon their own wisdom but upon God's
.
.
This mystical process is a manifestation grace." of the Eternal Word within the subject. It is a
logical as well as a spiritual development from the It is also a hypothesis. beginning of the experience
that
is
to justify the hypothesis.
But
this
purpose
must be rendered possible by the behaviour of the " whole man. We must search into and set in order both the outward and the inward because both are of importance to our progress." The mystic adds " Never be wholly idle but either be significantly
:
reading or writing
or
praying
or
meditating or
endeavouring something for the common good." Here the fundamental distinction between Eastern
and Western mysticism stands out

fresh
in absolute
clearness.
stage is reached with the twentieth of the first book. The golden virtues of chapter
*
Lib.
i.
cap. i8.
Lib.
i.
cap. 19.
238
solitude
THOMAS A KEMPIS
and silence are taught, the separation of the " inner self from the world. In silence and in stillness the religious soul grows and learns the mysteries of Holy Writ there she finds rivers of tears, wherein
:
she
may wash and cleanse herself night after night that she may be more familiar with her Creator.
.
.
Whoso
therefore
withdraweth
himself
will
from
his
acquaintance and friends, God him with His holy Angels.
draw near unto Shut thy door
behind, and call unto thee Jesus thy Beloved. Stay with Him in thy cell: for thou shalt not find so
great note
Here is the true mystic of the actual experience, the ripening But the practical reception of the Eternal Word. mind suddenly checks ecstasy. The men of the
peace elsewhere."
the
tionism
Middle Ages knew how dangerous it was. Perfecfinds no support from the true mystic. Therefore the rapture of divine intercourse is suddenly checked by a call for compunction of heart.
The
spirit
Lord of All
of compunction alone can welcome the in the sanctuary of the human heart.
Moreover, in that sacred chamber there must be a voice declaring that the world is well lost for Christ. "Woe to them that love this miserable and corruptible life."
We
Christ cannot again come down to us. with the Saints of God must spiritually ascend
"Their whole desire was borne up to the In this chapter Thomas a lasting and invisible." in his renunciation of the world and his Kempis,
to him.
'
Lib.
i.
cap. 22.
239
mystical ascension to the higher life, largely follows In the Golden Epistle the Saint of St Bernard.
"If thou wylt fynde his grace solitarye two thynges be necessary to the. The fyrst is that thou so withdrawe thyself fro al transitory thynges that thou care no more for them than if there were none such and that thou
Clairvaux
tells
us
:^
and be trewly
sette thyself at so vyle a price in
thyne owne syght
accompt thyselfe as naught, believing be better than thou arte and more to " Have please God." In the same Epistle he tells us these three thinges alwayes in the mynde, what thou hast been, what thou art and what thou shake be." So far as this life is concerned all are worthless. As he says elsewhere ^ stages " futura non exspectat, praeterita non recogitat, praesentia non experitur." A man must, to use the words of Tauler in his sermon on John the Baptist,^ " flee and separate himself from all that is temporal and transitory," though Tauler adds with the caution
al
that
thou
men
to
of the true mystic, necessaries of life."
"
God
does not grudge
man
the
"
We have not fully prepared the

basis from
which the new
life
is
" mystic grund or to be upbuilt, and
neither do
we
see in their true proportions things
past, present,
upon
*
death.
and to come until we have meditated That is the only fact in the human
-
Sermon 80. Godfray's English Version (1535 ?). See W. H. Hutton's valuable collection of Tauler's sermons, enThe Inner Way,
p. 96.
titled
240
THOMAS A KEMPIS
:
future that requires consideration, that must be provided against " Thou oughtest so to order thyself in all thy deeds and thoughts as if to-day thou wert
doomed
to die.
If to die
be dreadful, to
.
. .
live
long may perhaps prove more dangerous. Study so now to live, that at the hour of death thou mayest rather rejoice than fear. Keep thyself as a
. . .
pilgrim and a stranger upon the earth." "In omnibus Time, Death, and Judgment these respice finem." For three, and the greatest of these is Judgment. must that we be ready. The love of God which
passeth all understanding alone can make us fit to meet the Judge. If we are spiritually one with
Him
all
there
is
nothing to
"
fear.
We
shall acquiesce in
His works.
For he
that loves
God with
all his
heart fears neither Death nor Punishment nor Judgment nor Hell for perfect love gives fearless access
:
to
God."
Therefore
in the last
chapter
we have
exhortation for the zealous amendment of our whole life. " Remember always the end and that time lost never returns." The first book therefore does two things it states the mystic doctrine or hypothesis and shows
final practical
:
how in each soul there can be prepared that mystic " " Grund on which alone the ladder of perfection can be raised. The function of time in the economy
the giving of an opportunity for the The Christ of preparation of an approach to God. a had history perpetual object-lesson in such given
of grace
is
Lib.
i.
cap. 24.
'O
TO
WHOM SHALL
(;0
NLAKK
KOk TO
WITH MK, IN
THA'!'
MV MOAN HEAVY JOURNEY.
O GHOSTLY TREASURE, O RANSOMER AND REDEEMER, OF ALL THE WORLD, HOPE AND CONDUCTOR."
EVERYMAN,
U.
463-4, 590-1.
WOODCUr- KKOM TIIK AU(;EN'JINK EDIIION OK I489. [HIS EDITION ATIKlliUlES THE WORK TO THOMAS A KEMTIS. THE LINES FROM " EVERYMAN " ARE NOT GIVEN IN THAT EDITION, BUT ARE CONTEMTORAKV WORDS.

an use of time.
241
An
intuitive or at
any
rate mystic
conception of Christ as the necessary bridge between man and the Supreme Force outside man is
necessary in order so to prepare the soul of man that it may be possible for the imitation of Christ to
begin.
its
When
"Grund"
so prepared it can make and then raise the ladder that Christ
the soul
is
Himself had raised and ascended. That appears to be the position of a Kempis and of many other
mediaeval mystics.
The second book
of the
Imitation
takes
the
In the first book The reader into another region. Outei' Life, the life of the world, is the subject of discourse, and the pupil is taught how to use that
as a means, through spiritual admonitions, of apprehending a doctrine and securing a demonstrative
life
With the end of the first book the experience. pupil in the school of Christ is supposed to have
secured
outer
inner
the
machinery of
spiritual
ascent.
itself.
second book deals with the ascent

life
life,
The The
cannot ascend.
only assist the the real being to ascend, and become

It
can
united to God.
tions
The second book

to the Inner Life.
life,
sets forth
admonichapter
drawing
this
will
The
of
first
describes
"Christ
come
if
indwelling unto thee and
the
the
Word.
show thee His
a worthy abode within. All His beauty and glory are from within, and there He delights Himself. Frequent are
consolation,
own
thou prepare for
Him
His
visits to
the inward
man
make
therefore
242
THOMAS A KEMPIS
for Christ
:
room
and deny entrance

Christ
to all
other.
When
enough
thou hast
;
thou art
rich
and hast
neither
shalt
thou ever have rest
unless thou be inwardly united to Christ. ... lover of Jesus and of truth, who truly lives the
inner
life
and
is
free
from inordinate
affections,
can freely turn himself unto God, and lift himself He above himself in spirit, and rest in fruition.
that tastes
said or
all
things as they are, not as they are

is
thought to be,
truly
wise and taught

Life, that is
of
God
rather than of men."^

reality, of
This doctrine of
an Inner
"
one with the Eternal
Word and
they are," is brought home admonitions teachinof the hig^her virtues.

humility
is
*'
:
tastes all things as by a new series of
Absolute
Think not that thou hast enjoined made any progress unless thou feel thyself inferior Next to humility is the duty of making to all."^
and keeping peace the whole duty of altruism. " He that can This can only come by endurance. will best tell how to endure, keep greater peace. That man is conqueror of himself and Lord of the world, the friend of Christ and heir of Heaven."^ Humility and altruism must be accompanied by the wings that lift a man up simplicity and purity from earth. This must go side by side with selfcriticism and the avoidance of the fault of criticising " He that well and rightly considered his others. own works would find no cause to judge hardly of
Lib.
ii.
cap.
i.
LJb.
ii.
cap.
2.
Lib.
ii.
cap.
3.

another."^
"
243
Beside the virtues must be found that
glory of a good man," the testimony of a good conscience accompanied by the love of and familiar
friendship with Christ, and gratitude for the grace The few who have these golden virtues of of God.
the Inner Life are
fit
to tread the King's
way
of the
Holy
Cross.
sweetness to lighten
way
to
life
an experience without human it. Yet " there is no other and true inward peace." The ecstasy
It
is
of the mystic will be proved along this road this desolate desiccate passage from earth to heaven.
higher a man hath mounted in the spirit the heavier crosses he will often find because the
"
The
punishment of his exile increases with love."^ Rich must be the spiritual compensations for a system of
not only permits no manner of earthly comfort, that not only strips humanity of the humanities, but makes the burden of existence less
renunciation
that
tolerable as
it
increases in
holiness.
such utilitarian
comment even an
With some earthly saint who

to receive the
was not a mystic might be tempted
Malleolian doctrine of godliness in this life. Many attacks levelled at the position developed the
logical position of
Kempis would have been realised that he was writing essentially as a mystic and not as a spiritual economist, that he was describing the evolution of a
a
Thomas
it
been withheld had
subjective experience rather than the manner of the It is the Inner Life that he is outward man.
1
Lib.
ii.
cap.
5.
Lib.
ii.
cap. 12.
244
THOMAS A KEMPIS
describing, and probably no one will be found to deny that the holier a man is, the more profoundly
discontented he must be with the value of that
life.
The punishment
sume,
is
of his exile indeed, one so intense as on that day never
may
when
prethe
and sojourner at last takes ship for the heavenly country which he claims to be his home. If he is troubled by nothing else, he is troubled by the want of that faith which is an intense, an essential, part of an intellectual existence, a necessary part of the machinery of a mysterious world. But a Kempis claims that the growing miseries which belong to
pilgrim
the subjective experience of treading the way of the Holy Cross are in fact spiritual fruits, for they
demonstrate the orrowino- nearness and dearness of God. He speaks of a man who "would not choose
to be without grief and tribulation, because he believes " Such a that he shall be dearer unto God (ii. 12).
experience cannot, no subjective experience But the fact that all can, be translated into words. and the mystics, ancient modern, can unhesitatingly
spiritual
assert
this position,
proves that the spiritual
ex-
perience of which a Kempis treats has a real meaning, however difficult, indeed however impossible, it may be for the average everyday
professor of Christianity to realise it. is not necessarily absurd because
An
it
experience appears ex-
Counsels of perfection are travagant. realised by the most unlikely pupils.
sometimes
A Kempis in fact appreciates the apparent absurdity
245
" " It is not man's nature," he of his position. to says, carry the Cross, to love the Cross, to chasten the
into subjection, to flee honours, cheerfully to suffer reproaches, to despise himself, and wish to be despised, to endure misfortune and loss, and
it
body and bring
to desire to thyself
"
(ii.
kind
If thou look no prosperity in the world. thou canst of thyself do nothing of the But the aim of the true mystic is the 1 2).
'
creation
or
revelation of a second nature which,
without change of the personality, is perfectly attuned The entire process of the to the Eternal Word.
imitation of Christ
is
to attain or bring to light this
second nature and therewith " Paradise upon Earth." The Inner Life must come to know itself and the Kingdom of God, of which it forms a part. The second book of the hnitation begins with the dogma, " The Kingdom of God is within you," and ends by showing that this kingdom is the Paradise which The whole experience is the Inner Life can attain.
subjective, but
it
is is
only possible
when
the outer
or objective
life
lived according to the highest
standard
known
to the natural
man.
edition, places
in the
Dr
the
Bigg, following the Autograph book De Sacrame^tto Altaris third
order of
other early manuscript does this, certainly the right order from the mystical Dr Bigg says on this question, " The point of view. author knew best how to secure the impression
the books.
No
but
it is
which he wished to produce, and there is a special reason for that arrangement which he himself pre-
246
ferred.
THOMAS A KEMPIS
From
:
mystical writers divided the spiritual

stages
tion.
the time of Dionysius the Areopagite life into three
Illumination, and Consummatwo treatises deal upon the whole with that moral and spiritual discipline without which no man can be a true follower of Christ the third, on the Sacrament, points to the Eucharist as
Purgation,
first
The
Internal Consolation, tells of the presence of Christ in the soul, of life in the a Kempis understood it." spirit, of the mystic vision, as
;
means of union with the World the fourth, of

the
Him who
is
the Light of
book concerning the Sacrament deals with the means by which the It is part inner self is united to the Eternal Word.
it
We may take
therefore that the
of the spiritual up to the Inner

is
machinery that lifts the inner life Kingdom of God. The Sacrament
of the soul
to continue a former
Jacob's ladder
metaphor, the ladder the by which the ascent is
It is worth noticing that here, as in the made. ladder of Jacob's dream, the action begins on the earth. Jacob saw the Angels ascending and descend-
same way in the case of the Sacrament The the approach to God comes from earth first. idea of union with God indicated in this book and drawn direct from St John begins with a deliberate But act of ascent in answer to the call of the Word. the whole book deals with the spiritual mechanism
ing,
and
in the
of union with God.

"
It
long
full
Book
of Internal
we reach Consolation that we see

is
not until
"
the
the
mystical significance of the Imitation of Christ.
tia)
of gu'^s^V^^-nrng^^
i^^Ccfp^-f"^"f^^
Wt^mn -
TV a-e^ dix
^^^ tot |b
îx
pa J7^^tt|
*t|> i^tMlc^jfr
S^_^J: J^mitc-ftotn tut* m^^S,vsectf-dp
to titfc'H'csdc to
PART OF THP: first CHAPTER OF BOOK III (THE BOOK OF INWARD " CONSOLATION) OF THE TREATISE MUSICA PXCLESIASTICA :" ENGLISH VERSION. FROM THE MANUSCRIPT IN THE LIBRARY OF TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN.
THIS MS. CONTAINS
THE
FIRST THREE BOOKS OF

IT
IN ENGLISH.
THE TREATISE " DE IMITATIONS CHKISTl BELONGS TO THE MID-FIFTEENTH CENTURY.
'"
247
Here we have the Inner Life dwelHng in the Inner Kingdom of God. Here in the first chapter we
have God speaking, not from without but from " within. Blessed is the soul which hears the Lord
speaking within her.
ears that listen
within.
.
Blessed indeed are those
...
to the
Truth which teaches
Blessed are the eyes which are shut to the outward, but open to the inward. Blessed are
that prepare themselves more and more by daily exercises for the receipt of heavenly secrets." The second chapter tells us that the truth speaketh
they
" Speak therefore, inwardly without noise of words. for Thou hast the heareth for servant Lord, Thy The Indwelling Word words of Eternal Life." the book speaks to the Inner Man. throughout
:
words are Spirit and Life, not to be weighed by the understanding of man."^ "Let the Eternal Truth delight thee above all things." ^ The wonderful chapter on Divine Love is a curious echo of the Song of Songs after it had passed through " the minds of generations of mystics, Enlarge me
"
My
in
Love
that with the inner
mouth of my heart
and
to
may
taste
how sweet
in
it is
to love,
iv.
be melted
and bathed
love"
(lib.
cap. 5).
ecstasy of this chapter is in checked the manner customary with immediately The lover is told what are the notes a Kempis.
The
extraordinary
of a true lover,
and
is
warned
to
beware of the
"
wiles of the ancient enemy.

1
Many
warnings follow:
Lib.
iv.
Lib.
iv.
cap. 3 (in autograph MS.).
cap.
4.
248
THOMAS A KEMPIS
; ;
the need of hiding grace under the garb of humility of self-depreciation in the sight of God of continual
reference of the
all
;
world and
of renunciation of things to God The Inself-dedication to God.
dwelling Word takes up again the admonitions of The Augustinian has the first and second books.
clearly in his mind the dangers of Perfectionism. The fear of falling back into worldliness is ceaselessly
The disciple is warned against before his eyes. desire of every kind, and obedience to the example " Oh of Jesus Christ is almost harshly demanded.
He must learn in a harsh Dust, learn to obey."^ school that comfort is to be found in God alone, and
heart cannot truly rest nor be entirely ^ it rest in Thee." In the twentythird chapter the Inner Voice speaks once more to
that
"
my
contented unless
the disciple, telling him of four things that bring much peace " Study, son, to do the Will of another
:
rather than thine own. rather than more.
and
in
to be inferior to
Choose always to have less Seek always the lowest place Wish always and every one.
pray, that the will of

thee.
God may be wholly fulfilled Behold such a man enters the land of
is
peace and rest." The mystic position

reader's
"
kept
ever
before
the
mind intermingled with admonitions and
man ought therefore to rise above warnings. all creatures and perfectly to forsake himself and stand in ecstasy of mind and see that Thou the
^
Lib.
iv,
cap. 13.
Lib.
iv.
cap. 21.

Creator of
.
. .
249
things art in nothing like the creature. Unless a man be lifted up in spirit and freed
all
from all creatures and united wholly unto God, whatsoever he knows, whatsoever he possesses is Nature regards the outward of no great weight.
. . .
things
of
man
grace turns
itself to
:
the inward.
The one is God and

forgotten
often disappointed is not deceived." ^
the other trusts in
wisdom seems very mean and
True heavenly small, and almost

it
-
"
among men
is
yet
is
price which
hidden from many."
"
the pearl of Everlast-
beams
and
ing Light, surpassing all created luminaries dart the of Thy brightness from above and penetrate all the corners of my heart. Purify, beatify, beautify
:
vivify
my
spirit
with
all its
powers
that
may
cleave unto
transports of jubilation. for the coming of that blessed and desirable hour, when Thou wilt satisfy me with Thy Presence and
Thee with
be unto
me
all
in all."^
"
Let
thy prayer, this

stripped of
thy
desire,
be thy aim, this that thou mayst be

this
all that is thine, and naked, follow Jesus naked; mayst die to thyself; and live eternally to Me." * The disciple must seek " the lot and freedom of the sons of God, who stand above things present "If thou and contemplate things Eternal,"^
couldest
perfectly
annihilate
thyself
and
empty
thyself of all created love, then should I overflow " into thee with great grace." ^ home most blessed
'
Lib.
Lib.
iv. iv.
cap cap
31.
^
Lib. Lib.
iv. iv.
37.
cap cap
32.
"
Lib. Lib.
iv.
38.
iv.
cap cap
34.
42.
250
in the
THOMAS A KEMPIS
O cloudless day of Eternity City above. which no night obscures, whose never setting sun is the Truth supreme day ever joyful, ever secure
;
and never changing into its contrary. O that that day had dawned and that all these things of time had come to an end."^ "There shall thy will be ever one with Mine, shall not desire any outward There ... all things thou canst or personal gain. desire shall be there together present and refresh thy whole affection and fill it up to the brim."^
The
"
perfect victory is to triumph over ourselves. For he that keeps himself in such subjection, that
his senses
all
be obedient to reason, and his reason
in
things to Me, is truly conqueror of himself and Lord of the World." ^ The fifty-fourth chapter contrasts in great detail Nature and Grace, and
shows that Grace is that second nature with which "This Grace is a the Inner Life must be clothed. a special gift of God and supernatural light and the proper seal of the elect and pledge of eternal
salvation
up a man from earth to love the makes things of heaven, and from being carnal is held Nature him spiritual. The more, therefore. down and subdued the greater Grace is infused
;
it
raises
and every day by new
visitations the inward
man
is
* We reshaped according to the image of God." matter. whole the of slowly move to the conclusion Man is made unto the image of God and the Inner
1
Lib.
Lib.
iv.
cap. 48.
Lib. Lib.
iv.
iv.
cap
53.
iv.
cap cap
49.
54.

has obscured.
"
251
Life will re-create the likeness that the Outer Life
In a curious
"
speaks of in ashes and "encompassed about with great darkness," but yet able to discriminate between the true
Natural Reason
passage a Kempis being a spark buried
and the
"
false,
it
is,
between the inner and the outer
life.
after
Thy law But Grace, the second nature, is the only moving force, and it must be used if we are to imitate Christ and thus resume the " Grant me grace to imitate image of the heavenly
God, that
^
Hence
O my
delight in
the
inward man."
fulfilment of imitation is seen in the " For being ravished above self lives of the saints
:
Thee."
The
and drawn out of love of

into love of
self,
they plunge wholly
Me
in
whom
Nothino- can turn them

for
also they rest in fruition. back or hold them down
being
fire
the
of the eternal Truth, they burn with It is but rarely of unquenchable charity." ^
full
that a
Kempis
so vividly, in language so Dantesque,
describes the mystic rapture. But here we are at the culmination of his whole
philosophy,
things
which would
to
abolish
the
dualism of
the un-
and give
fact
the
illuminated
seer
of personal intercourse with God. speakable If St Bernard saw God face to face as the Middle
consummation could be attained by the humblest of God's Saints. Yet such a consummation is the dream of a philosophy and not of a
Ages
believed, such a
religion.
^
It is
the goal of a long line of philosophic

^
Lib.
iv.
cap
55.
Lib.
iv.
cap
56.
Lib.
iv.
cap
58.
252
THOMAS A KEMPIS
its way through the minds of who through many centuries had turned
thought that threads

the thinkers
their eyes "
in
from
this
corruptible
"
land of the shadow of death

the exquisite
world, from this (as a Kempis calls it

that concludes the
Aurea Oratio
Imitation), to
"the home of everlasting day." It is the mystic's philosophy high and noble, the that having formulated an hypothesis philosophy shows the way to an experience that must confirm
If we imitate the Christ of history the hypothesis. we shall find the mystic Christ, the Eternal Word
which
of
shall reconcile,
man
without merger, the personality to the personality of God. The same con-
ception had illuminated the mystics of all the It was the need of such a conChristian centuries.
ception that brought Greek philosophy into intimate But it was not until a union with Christian faith.
Kempis had
finished his
immortal work that the
conception was stated in such a form that it could appeal to almost every type of mind, and make the
simple
peasant as well as the

is
great philosopher
its
realise that Christianity
philosophy at
highest
exhibited in action.
The
tion
Imitation within a few years from its complewas the aloe flower that It stood alone.
of
bitter
centuries
introspection had The dim yearnings of more than fifteen produced. hundred years for the way of a Messiah, for an
devotional
imitable reconciler of
man and God,

that
for Christ
and
in
things Christlike
yearnings
rose
bitterly

the
253
awful
wilderness
of
time
;
long
before
the
yearnings that did not cease during the hollow splendours of the Empire that echo in the or amidst its decadent glories
bitterness of the
;
Garden
darkness of the succeeding centuries and through

the twilight of sacerdotal Rome these helpless cries to the far realms of help find their full expression
:
here.
Christ was raising Lazarus in Bethany, Philo was proclaiming the Logos in Alexandria, and
When
declaring that "only he

to
who
dies to himself can live
God." Seventy years after, when John in Patmos was describing the new heaven and the new earth, Plutarch was formulating the Logos as he read it, daemonic and dynamic, leading man up from himself
to
God.
"
Two
centuries later, Plotinus enunciated
that
" ecstasy of unutterable feeling," that Flight of the alone to the x'\lone," which only could bring
God and so abolish the dualism between the old heaven and the old earth. Even Aurelius had been touched by the same doctrine in " the previous generation Live with the gods," he
men
into union with
:
cries.
"
And he
them
lives with the
gods who continually
displays to
its
lot,
his soul, living in satisfaction with
and doing the Will of the inward spirit, a portion of his own divinity which Zeus has given to This is the every man for a ruler and a guide.
intelligence,
the reason that abides in us
all."
If
Chrysostom the golden-mouthed was glad to scourge men into reconciliation, his contemporary Augustine was content for the things of this world and the
254
THOMAS A KEMPIS
all reasoning about them to " vanish out of sight. Happy is the man who knows " Thee, yet not these," for he possesseth all things by his union with Thee." In the sixth century, when
knowledge of them and
City of God had been dead a hundred years and night had fallen, we find Severinus Boethius attempting the reconciliation of God and man, justifying the ways of God to man in an age
the author of the
the ways of man in the heart of civilisation were capable of no justification whatsoever. He dreamed, amidst the shows of things, of an eternity possessing "the whole plenitude of an unlimited life at once," and Christianised ex post facto by Dante he rests from martyrdom and exile in the charmed circle girt with eternal music where Albert of Cologne
when
and Thomas of Aquino

where
"
In the same age the founder of the Benedictines established the cloisters
dwell.
his disciples
li piedi e
Fermar
tennero il cor saldo" {Par.
xxii. 51),
ever contemplating the central light and the sphere
where the perfect patterns are
laid up.
cleansing midwinter night of the early Middle closed round Christendom, and while the has Ages midnight bell is sounding the Contemplatives keep watch upon the heaven where they would be. The
The
with Roger Bacon Doctor, dictated the learning of Europe while he unfolded the mystical threefold meaning of the Holy Books, made Grammar the divine key of the Word, and was
Venerable Bede, he
title
who shared
the
of the
Admirable
255
" lest the angels joining present at all sacred offices, in the Church's worship should miss his presence His disciple Alcuin, waving aside the cares there." and controversies of his toilsome life, put forward in
the de Fide Sanctae Trinitatis his ultimate of Augustine,
faith.
All
much of
Plutarch
is
there.
The dualism
between things created and the increate and creative Spirit was overcome by the daemonic and moving agency of angels until the coming of One who is both God and man, whose footsteps trace the path
of peace to God,
who
eternally reconciles the finite

satisfies
and the
of
infinite,
and thus
man
for the Absolute.
the inborn craving Alcuin's school, and in
his great follower Rabanus Maurus, carried particular on his theological tradition, the Augustine tradition
That tradition, of the relationship of God and man. moreover, received new strength from the support
given to
by a famous contemporary of the Abbot The Holy of Fulda, Johannes Scotus Erigena.
it
Sophist enunciated a doctrine of creative ideas which, proceeding from God, are wholly good, which as realised in the material universe are tainted with
become again perfectly good by the and the ultimate re-union with God. self of death " " is the Precious," he says, passage of purified souls
evil,
but
into the intimate contemplation of truth
which
is
the
true blessedness and eternity."
and Boethius almost

a Contemplative.
Plutarch, Augustine, entirely inspired his position as To them all true philosophy and
true religion were in the end indistinguishable.
256
THOMAS A KEMPIS
The tenth century gives us no speculative name save that of the famous Gerbert, ^ whose physical
who
investigations anticipated the work of Roger Bacon, declared that the proper study of mankind is
to place around a the apparent universe speculative world into which man could only see, which he could only enter and
faith. Such a thinker, a man and who was pious, profound regarded by his own it awaited, during the four years of his age (while
man, but who nevertheless seems
enjoy by the aid of
reign,
the
destruction
of the
magician, occupies a place in To him, as to Bacon and even Contemplatives. many modern thinkers, the dualism of the universe
world) as a the catenary of the

visible
the ultimate mystery of matter could but be solved. That mystery is a fit subject of contemplation, since it may declare the unity about
if
would disappear
which so many generations had ignorantly philoThe ideal and universal whole cannot be sophised.
realised until the parts themselves
in
complete and
its
final detail
whole.
short of
Idealism even in
have been explored and correlated with the the mind of Plato fell
goal because it could not complete such In the case of the mediaeval Neoa relationship.
Platonists,
the
failure
of idealism
grew more and

its
more
apparent as the religious cry for
success
The pathway of grew more and more urgent. be the to of Christ needed In the pathway reality. mind of the theologian it tended to become a
^
Pope Sylvester
II.
(999-1003).

grammarian's
maze.
257
There
were
there clearing the thorny ground way, and there was Gerbert's way
kills
two ways of was Abelard's

the doubt that
and the doubt that makes alive aâin.
Gerbert
turned to the investigation of the parts while he To recognised the ideal existence of the whole.
have shown the

ship of
possibility of such an attitude was his contribution to man's conception of the relation-
man and God. He saw things dimly, but Abelard doubted that he also saw them whole. he might enquire not into the facts of nature but To him things remained into the opinions of men.
and God immaterial. His loeic could to the no arch of nature. keystone supply For the moment Gerbert stood alone. To the was a and after he his death his magician, people
material
apparent use lay in the fact that his tomb sweated his bones rattled as a frequent presage of the death of rapidly succeeding popes. Two centuries
and
and a half were destined to pass before his magic robes were resumed by the Admirable Doctor of Oxford and Paris. Meanwhile the theoloo-ians still o
stood gazing up into heaven. But a new ethical note began to personify the Platonic goodness and to individualise the Christ of the schoolmen.
The
faith.
definite issue.
dispute as to the sanctity of Alfege raised a He died for the people, not for the But Anselm justified his canonisation in
one striking phrase, " Who dies for justice, dies for Christ," Lanfranc was convinced and the
258
THOMAS A KEMPIS
following of Christ acquired for all ages a wider, a more individualistic meaning. But the philosophic link between the infinite and the finite was not less
real to
Anselm than
to his forerunners.
He
was,
as Maurice has shown, a Platonist at heart.
There
a supreme Good which is God. are made: "for this Good every
is
By man
this
Good we
should strive
with his whole heart,
and whole
soul,
mind, by loving it and longing for it." is more than a Platonist. With St Augustine he calls to God to reveal himself; with Boethius he
contrasts the environments of time
and whole But Anselm
and eternity
with Alcuin he admits that
God
is
can be referred to
no
species,
though
it
is
his property
always to have
for the
mercy, but claims that that
an argument
He seems personal existence of the Supreme Good, to say that we may reason from the particular to the
general, even
if
conception. the logical goal of a rising scale of things finite. Belief is therefore not unreasonable and, as he declares in his Monologue on the Essence of the
Divinity, "it is fitting, therefore, for the same human soul to believe this supreme Essence and
We
the general be beyond our finite may think that the unthinkable is
those things without which
it
cannot be loved, that

it."
may by believing Abelard breaks

it
stretch towards
for
moment
the
chain
of
of the greatest of the logicians, he was a follower neither of Plato nor " " of Aristotle. By doubting we come to inquiry
the Contemplatives.
One

did not
259
exhaust
the
difference
between
him
and the holders of the Augustinian tradition. He was intellectually a nominalist of the most logical
type,
more
logical
than his school.

in
underlying
unity
his
reality reconciling
Man
There is no conception, no ultimate and God. His cold logic
He dispenses with the mystery of the Universe. does not stand looking up into heaven, neither does
he peer
into the physical inquiry he never came to
By mystery of the earth. doubt the reality of either
or matter, for he never inquired into the existence of either, though he reasoned about both. His
God
was a Logic of Assent that, assuming the existence of one by faith and the other by sight, found no
mystery in either, but merely terms of logical import. Maurice points out that he acknowledged, as a thinker (whatever he may have acknowledged as a " man), no spiritual bond between the Divine Creator and himself." It seems to the present writer that
Thomas
Kempis
deliberately singled out Abelard

:
(the author of de Generibus et speciebus) for attack he and his school of arrogant, narrow, pure thought, stood out as the eternal opponents of the contem-
plativism that was crystallised in the Imitation. St Bernard of Clairvaux (1091-1153) did even
more than St Anselm
to bring
down
the heaven of
man and to make it the source of a practical faith. He is the direct forerunner of a Kempis. It was a sound literary, a
mysticism into the heart of
sound philosophic
instinct that
made a
copyist of the
260
THOMAS A KEMPIS
We
even
fifteenth century attribute the Imitation to him. find in his sermons and letters the very spirit,
the very hterary note of the Imitation. But if the Doctor MelHfluus was the father in Hterature of a
Kempis, pointing the way
in
which the wisdom of the
Fathers and the Doctors could be epigrammatised and crystallised into immortal form, many other forces,
as
we have
already seen, contributed to the thought

recluse,
of the
Dutch
Hugo of St Victor (1097-1141), the German who came to the School of Paris, elaborated a doctrine of
spiritual reality that
gave a new basis

the
initial
to mysticism.
Faith, he taught,
is
good, since in
some
God,
measure
it
makes us
realise the actuality of

is
the highest good. life of faith is the precursor of an eternity of contemplaBut he recognised the practical side of things. tion.
the realisation of
whom
The world must be

life is
a better world
"
if
any individual
life
to
fulfil
itself
requires for
its
integrity of human fulfilment science and virtue."
The
Master of (1100-1160), the didactic formularism of Sentences, completed the St Bernard and the practical mysticism of Hugo of
Peter
Lombard
St Victor.
He was
of
an
intellectual
and
spiritual
descendant
Augustine.
He
carried
verbal
analysis to its extremest limits, but
never
lost sight
of the doctrine that
we
are what
we
are by the
his verbosity justified the jest of his contemporary, John of Salisbury, levelled at
Grace of God.
But
the mediaeval doctors, " there
is
no getting away from

Genera and Species."
position.
261
very
Kempis adopts
this
preached
Gospel,"
influence of Joachim the Cistercian (1130He 1202) on a Kempis cannot be overlooked. " the Everlasting a new dispensation,
The
when man would become

spiritually free.
in
It
spiritually perfect
and therefore
legitimate
was a new but a
The the cult of mysticism. is a marked feature of Joachim spiritual aspiration Richard of St Victor (f. 1173), of the hnitation.
step
"
who was
in
contemplation
more
than
man,"
carried forward
that intense contemplation of the Trinity that distinguished the mystics and doctors of The Aristotelian reaction the twelfth century.
of the
thirteenth
century,
despite
the anathemas
of the Vatican, brought a new force into mysticism. To Aristotle, God was the Alpha and Omega of a
Universe which in its natural structure was sharply But this acute dualism was in a divided from him. measure resolved by a more than Platonic idealism. Aristotle conceived of a Scala Naturalis in which
each of the
limits
finite
creatures
is
"
regarded as seeking
it
for the divine, but able to realise
only within the

it
of
its
own
form.
Aiming
at eternity,
is
confined
within
existence which
attains to
of an individual and perishable, though it a kind of image of eternity in the con-
the
conditions
is
finite
It attains it, however, in a still tinuity of the species. higher way, in so far as its own limited life is made
the basis of a higher
life
till
in the
ascending scale
262
THOMAS A KEMPIS
reach at last the rational
life
we
of man,
who
at least
pure activity of contemplation, can directly But the participate in the eternal and divine."
the gap difficulty that makes the dualism between divine intelligence and the material changing world is not explained. To the analyst with human limitations this blur on a scheme of idealism is
real
in the
inevitable.
On
the
other
hand,
"
the
general
tendency of Plato is to generalise and to unify, to refer each sphere of phenomenal existence to some idea which he regards as the source of all its reality, and
the principle through which alone it can be understood and, ultimately, to carry back all these ideas to the Good or the divine reason, as the principle of
;
all
being and of
is
versal
the real
all "
;
thought." With Plato "the uniwith Aristotle " the individual is
In their higher sense, there is no ultimate antagonism between these propositions, since a uni-
the real."
versal
"means a general
all
principle,
viewed as expres;
sing
is
itself in different
implies
forms or phases, each of which the others and the whole and an individual
just such a whole or totality, viewed as determined in all its forms or phases by one principle."^
But the Middle Ages and the schoolmen did not
They attempt to find idealism in Aristotle himself. solved the dualism that Aristotle appears to present
by the application of Christianity. Hence we find that though for a time purely contemplative creations,
^
The Evolution of Theology in the Greek Philosophers, by Edward

i.
Caird, vol.
pp. 262, 267, 277.

such as the
12 16),
263
1 1
De
Contemplatione of Innocent
the
mystics,
III.
60for
influenced
we must
look
practical results in the foundation of the great orders
by St Dominic
(11 70-1 221)
and St Francis (1182-
The Seraphic Father gave a new missionary, 1226). a speculative and individual, zeal to the Church. find that its new thinking- force was to be derived
We
from the work of Albertus

(i
Magnus
of Cologne
193-1280), the Universal Doctor, and his pupil Thomas of Aquino (1225- 1274) the Angelic Doctor.
In that age
Bacon Bonaventura (i 221- 1274) the Seraphic Doctor. These men formed a remarkable galaxy of thought, Albert of inspiration, and contemplative power. Cologne and Roger Bacon both lay under the same
suspicion
nature, to
came two other notable figures Roger (12 14- 1294) the Admirable Doctor, and
:
that
Gerbert
suffered.
To
investigate
endeavour to proceed from the particular to the universal was their office and their glory. Such men were necessarily Aristotelians in the
The only true method of reconciliation between God and this world was to find a natural
best sense.
and a metaphysical as well as a

union
the
;
spiritual
bond of
Ancrelic
to find in the ladders of nature
and thought
union between
man and God.
The
rather of Abelard than
Doctor was of another type of mind the mind Hugo, but of Abelard with a keener faith. Aquinas deliberately entertained doubt that he might come to inquiry, and he came to inquiry that he might approach God by every
264
intellectual
THOMAS A KEMPIS
avenue.
He was
in
no
sense
an
Augustinian. up in heaven.
to reality. to say, he
If
He
did not
believe in patterns laid
Pure intelligence was the pathway man is to realise God at all, he seems
must do it in the mind and not in the Such a doctrine must have been repulsive in heart. He preferred to be on the extreme to a Kempis. the side of Seraphs. But all these influences directly and indirectly bore upon the content of the Imitation. More often than not the influence was indirect, and came to a Kempis by way of the German and
Flemish mystics, Eckhardt, Tauler, Suso, Ruysbroek, as we have seen, to offer for his selection the thoughts of many ages on the ultimate mystery that underlies the relationship of God and man. When we turn from the theological and philo-
who seemed,
sophical aspects of the Imitation to

social
life,
its
doctrines of
we find on examination something quite from the superficial view often taken of It may readily be admitted this side of its content. that it is possible to take a series of quotations from
different
the Imitation which would appear to show that its author knew nothing of the promise of this life and
was merely inspired with an egotism entirely rean egotism that is not pellant to the modern mind
less
an egotism from the
fact that
it
substitutes love
of the Creator for the love of the created.
Quota-
tions can, however, like statistics, prove anything. The tenets of some Christian sects show how the
spirit
of the Bible can be obscured or even wholly
265
hidden by the selective process, and I cannot but think that in the case of the Imitation the same mis-
The work falls naturally into take has happened. two parts the philosophic part, which preaches the
:
doctrine of a subjective Inner Life based on a philosophic hypothesis and to be approximately realised
in
an experience that realises the sermon on the

;
lives the life of Christ and the social a which which all men exhibits Outer Life daily part, may, without unreasonable dreams of perfection, live and rejoice in. Before detailing some of the more serious criticisms that have been levelled at the Imitation, it will be convenient to draw from the three books which form what is known as the
Mount and
Ecclesiastical Music, the doctrines of social
life
as
conceived by Thomas a Kempis. The briefest exshows that selfishness of any sort was at amination least as abhorrent to a Kempis as it is to his critics.
So
far as the
individualist
of
knew
that
all
Inner Life goes he is, it is true, an the most unbending type. He the great decisions of life depend on
sense of
all ethical,
the individual, and that a profound dividual responsibility is the basis of

spiritual
life,
inall
progress.
life
But
in
relation
is
to
the outer
the
of
common
day, he
in fact
a socialist
preaches from end to end of his work the most practical form of
individualist.
rather
than an
He
altruism.
series
of quotations
better
than
comment
can
do.
will "
show
this
To make no
always well
account of
ourselves, and to think
266
THOMAS A KEMPIS
is
.
and highly of others

fection.
. .
We
all
great wisdom and perare frail but thou shalt
esteem
ashamed
.
. .
"Be not frailer than thyself."^ to serve others for the love of Jesus Christ think not thyself better than others. ... If
none
thou hast any good believe better things of others, It hurts not that thou mayest preserve humility.
under all men but it hurts much even to one." ^ " Keep company with the humble and simple, with the devout and virtuous and commune with them of those things
to debase thyself to prefer thyself
:
that
may
and
"
edify."
To
refuse to yield to others,
when reason
pride
or a cause requires it, is a sign of so willingly talk obstinacy."^
"We
because by mutual speech we seek mutual comfort and desire to ease the heart over-wearied by manifold
anxieties.
. . .
Our
spiritual progress
is
not a
little
:
communing of spiritual things when of like mind and spirit be met men especially "If thou didst but mark how together in God."^ much peace unto thyself and joy u7ito others thou
shouldst procure by behaving thyself well, I think thou wouldest be more careful of thy spiritual progress."*^ "Often take counsel in temptation and deal
helped, by devout
not roughly with him that is tempted, but give him ^ comfort, as thou wouldest wish to be done to thyself"
*
Lib.
i.
cap.
cap.
2.
lijj
âp.
7.
lji-,
j^^p. 8.
^ Lib. i. cap. 11. cap. 10. ^ Dr out that i. Lib. Bigg points John Dygoun, the fifteenth cap. 13. century copyist of Sheen, writes opposite to this tender pastoral, Nota
Lib.
i.
9.
Lib.
i.
nota bene.

:
267
"Turn thine eyes upon thyself and beware thou judge In judging of others a man not the actions of others.
labours in vain
does
much
He often errs and easily sins.''^ much He does that much. that loves
;
"
does a thine well.
He
does well that serves the
community rather
glad our
to see
than his
:
own
will."-
"We
are
others perfect
own
:
faults.
We
will
and yet we mend not have others severely

.
corrected
and will not be corrected ourselves. We will have others restrained by laws but will And thus it not in any way be checked ourselves. appears how seldom we weigh our neighbour in the same balance with ourselves. If all men were perfect what should we have to suffer from others for God's sake ? But now God hath so ordered it, that we may learn to bear one another's burdens for no man is without fault, no man without his burden no man sufficient for himself, no man wise enough for himself but we ought to bear with one another, comfort one another, help, instruct, and admonish one another."^ The whole duty of human altruism, the whole doctrine of human solidarity, is contained in these pregnant phrases. Here is no selfish mystic, absorbed in the contemplation of his own soul and his own ultimate perfection. Man must lean upon man if he is to lean upon God, is the specific teaching of the great Augustinian. " Still have an eye to thyself first and admonish thyself especially before all thy
.
beloved friends.
'
... A
-
eood
man
^
finds
i.
cause
Lib.
i.
cap. 14.
Lib.
i.
cap. 15.
Lib.
cap. 16.
268
THOMAS A KEMPIS
for mourning and weeping. For, whether he consider his own or his neighbour's estate, he knows that none Hves here without tribulation." ^ " Man's happiness consists not in abundance of
enough
temporal goods but a moderate portion is enough " Whilst thou art in health thou mayest do for him." ^
much good."^
hath the patient
gainsayers
:
"A
man
great and wholesome purgatory.

. .
and
cheerfully for his from his heart forgives offences

:
who prays
who
is
delays not to ask forgiveness from others who Here we have quicker to pity than to wrath.
.
toil, and enjoy the comfort of our friends."* "Hope in the Lord and do good saith the Prophet, and inhabit the land and thou shalt
:
some pause from
be fed
in the riches
thereof
... Be
careful also to
avoid and conquer those faults

often displease thee in others. to thy soul everywhere.
.
. .
especially
wilt
which
profit
re-
Gather some
Thou
always
joice at eventide
if
thou spend the day

find
fruitfully."^
When we
"
turn to the second book
the book of
hisfh
the Inner Life
we
the
same
.
doctrine
of Christian altruism, of devotion to duty and to
An inward man finds no hindrance outward labour, or business necessary for the but as things fall out so he accommodates time himself to them."*^ "Think not that thou hast
others.
in
. .
;
made any progress

to
'
all."
Lib.
^
i.
"
unless thou feel thyself inferior therefore, be severe towards First,

'^Lib.
i.
cap. 21.
i.
Lib.
cap. 25.
^ * Lib. i. cap. 23. Lib. i. cap. 24. cap. 22. ^ Lib. ii. ^ Lib. ii. cap. 2. cap. i.

thyself,
269
and then mayest thou
Thou towards thy neighbour. own deeds, but thou wilt thine excuse and colour It were more not admit the excuses of others. accuse thyself, and excuse just that thou shouldest
thy brother.
another."
^
justly be severe also knowest well how to
If
thou
in
wilt
Perhaps
be carried, carry also no single phrase does a
adequately set forth his own social " si portari vis, porta et alium." views as in the words, In this phrase is contained the whole statement
Kempis
so
upon which depends that inner life which is the confessed aim and end of every "If This idea is consistently developed mystic. thou intend and seek nothing else but the pleasure of God and the good of thy neighbour, thou shalt
of the outer
life,
:
enjoy perfect internal freedom."^
and goes on to declare in a remarkable world of the that the sentence progress mystical If is a positive responsibility of each individual.
He
the world
is
evil,
it
is
in
fact
a reflection of the
"If thy heart were right, then be a mirror of life, and a book would every creature
onlooker's heart.
If the heart sees evil, it is evil. of holy doctrine." If each all things are pure. heart in To the pure man will see that his own heart is right, all will soon
be very well with the world.
rightly considered his cause to judge hardly of another."

"
1
and own works, would find no

that well
^
"He
Without a friend thou canst not

Lib.
^
ii.
live well
^
and
5.
cap.
3.
Lib.
ii.
cap.
4.
Lib.
ii.
cap.
270
if
THOMAS A KEMPIS
. . . ;
to thee, thou wilt Jesus be not above all a friend all for Jesus love desolate be very sad and ^ but Jesus for Himself."
Here we have again the conception

solidarity
of
human
of
all
with
Christ
as
the
uniting link
human relationship. But the friendship of Christ is the supreme fact: "learn to part even with a near and dear friend for the love of God."- The man who wrote that knew what friendship was. " The idea is carried on in the phrase, If thou wilt
carry the Cross cheerfully,
it
will carry thee,"
the
of the injunccounterpart with respect to Christ " If thou tion with respect to the human friend. * two These another." also wilt be carried, carry
sentences bring out the universality of the doctrine of vicarious effect, which is another form of the
doctrine of
human
solidarity.
Every good
and
is endured or welevery evil deed done by man comed by every man in the world, is endured or welcomed even by the risen Christ Himself. To
charo-e the
author of such a doctrine with

of
selfish-
ness
misunderstand the meaning great to as be reasonable would It ethical principles. with selfishness. charge the Founder of Christianity It will serve no useful purpose to pursue further an to show that a Kempis was an analysis intended
is
to
Lib. Lib.
ii. ii.
cap.
in
8.
3.
Cap.
"
9.
cap.
Compare
iv.
iv.
Thy
grounded
Jesus will
me "
(Lib.
cap. 42).
Lib. ii. cap. 12. love for thy friend should be " Come brothers march togeth
be with us" (Lib.
cap. 56).

altruist
271
and not a
spiritual
hedonist,
but some
quotations from the book of Internal Consolation may be given to show something of his outlook on the workaday world. He certainly felt that " the things of earth were to be used. Behold heaven and earth which Thou hast created for the
service of
man
wait upon
little
Thee
find
and
^
whatever Thou hast commanded."

content
^
daily perform " Learn to be

in
with
"
and
delight
:
simple
things." " All that
Use temporal things desire eternal." * we have in soul and in body, and what-
soever
possess without or within, naturally or supernaturally are Thy benefits and proclaim Thee
bountiful, merciful
we
and good, from

^
whom we
have
Behold, meat, drink, good things." raiment, and other commodities for the sustenance of the body, are a burden to the fervent spirit.
all
received
"
Grant me to use such refreshments moderately, It is not to be entangled with excessive desire. not lawful to cast away all things, because nature
must be sustained." ^ We are to become one with " draw the temporal things the Sons of God who to serve them well in such ways as are ordained by God and appointed by the Great Work-master, who hath left nothing in His creation without due
order."
*
"
Thou
art flesh, not angel."

iv.
See also the following references. Lib.
cap. 13, cap. 23, cap. 27,

*
''
cap. 36, cap. 42, cap. 54, cap. 56, cap. 58. 2 ^ Lib. iv. cap. 11. Lib. iv. cap. 10. ^ ^ Lib. iv. cap. 26. Lib. iv. cap. 22.
**
Lib.
Lib.
iv.
iv.
cap. 16.
cap. 38.
Lib.
iv.
cap. 57.
272
THOMAS A KEMPIS
a Kempis, in fact, presents, as all true mystics present, a perfectly sane view of the outward
life.
Thomas
It
is
only
to the
if
we
and attach
outward
is
forget this fundamental view life the mystical conception
of the Inner Life as set forth
by a Kempis and
his
any temptation From mystic of spiritual hedonism and selfishness. all we know of a Kempis we have reason to believe
that in his quiet
school that there
to accuse the
way he thoroughly enjoyed
his
life.
did not in any way spurn the pleasures of the book or of the table, or of companionship, but he
He
took good care that life should not be entirely composed of those things, that they should, in fact, only be admitted in so far as they tended to en-
courage a high spiritual outlook on the life to be. One could not, it is quite certain, take this view
of a
Kempis and
of the
De
hnitatione Christi
if
one
Consider accepted the judgment of certain critics. in the light of the foregoing quotations the criticism
of
Dean Milman.
this
After
some
valuable remarks on the merits and

Imitation,
interesting and influence of the

:
"But
is
'the
distinguished historian proceeds Imitation of Christ,' the last effort of

is still
Latin Christianity,
absolutely
monastic Christianity.
It
selfish in its aim, as exclusive object, is the individual soul, of purification, the elevation of the the man absolutely isolated from his kind, of the
and
entirely
in its acts.
Its sole, single,
man
dwelling alone in
mitage of his
own thoughts
the solitude, in the herwith no fears or hopes.

;

:
273
no sympathies of our common nature he has withdrawn and secluded himself not only absolutely from the cares, the sins, the trials, but from the duties, the connexions, the moral and religious fate of the world. Never was misnomer so glaring, if
justly
*
considered,
as
the
title
of
the book,
the
Imitation
of Christ.'
That which distinguishes
Christ, that which distinguishes Christ's Apostles that which distinoûishes Christ's relioion the Love
of
Man
The
is entirely and absolutely left out. 'Imitation of Christ' begins in self terminates
.
He went simple exemplary sentence, about doing good,' is wanting in the monastic gospel of this pious zealot. Of feeding the hungry, of clothing
in self
The
'
the naked, of visiting the prisoner, even of preaching, The world is dead there is profound, total silence.
to the votary of the Imitation,
and he
is
dead to
the
the world, dead in a sense absolutely repudiated by first vital principles of the Christian faith.
to be herself again,
Christianity,
must not merely

but
shake
off indignantly the barbarism, the vices,

^
even the virtues of the Mediaeval, of Monastic, of

Latin, Christianity." Such a criticism will be read with absolute amaze-
ment by anyone who has considered fairly and with an unbiassed mind the quotations from the Imitation set out above. There is a temptation to feel that the late Dean of St Paul's had never really considered
'
The History of Latin Christianity^ by Henry Hart Milman, D.D.,

of St Paul's,
Dean
S
Book
xiv. cap. 3
(3rd ed., 1872, vol.
ix.
pp. 163-5).
274
THOMAS A KEMPIS
De hnitatione Christi, but had assumed that it was the last effort of Latin Christianity, whatever that may mean, and had adopted
the precepts of the
a theory of its contents that fitted in with the The answer to Dean theory of a decadent Church.
Milman's criticism is the text of the Imitation, and such phrases as si portari vis, porta et alium. No critic who had reahsed the meaning of that sentence
could say that the Love of Man is entirely and " out from the work in which it occurs. left absolutely
"
Moreover, the historian of Latin Christianity shows how entirely he misapprehended the place of the
Imitation in the history of religion when he declared " the last effort of Latin Christianity." that it was
point of view it would have seemed reasonable to suppose that that last effort was the educational activity of the Jesuits in the Far East and the Near West. But the Imitation,
Even from Dean Milman's
even
are so destitute of the literary faculty as to suppose that it was written by Jean le Charlier de Gerson, had no relation to Latin Christianity, if by
if
we
that term
the Christianity of Avignon and was the product of Germanic Christianity by which I mean the Invisible Church that was preparing the Reformation in England and West Central and Northern Europe. Absolutely the the for work reason an effort of Latin calling only as were the great Christianity is that it was written
we mean
Rome.
It
treatises of
Luther
in Latin.
But England, Holland

in
and France had vernacular versions early
the

fifteenth century,
275
and
for long
ages
it
was
in
England
actually believed by the best critics that the work was written by an Englishman in English. The
mystic element in the work, and the fact that it was written by a monk, no doubt give colour at first
sight to the idea that the Imitation was a product of the Latin Church, but the idea vanishes when it is
Church was at the best a stepmother to true mysticism, and that monasticism provided the chief elements of revolt from and
realised that the Latin
reformation in that Church,
However, Dean Milman's views have been widely " Moreover, his statement that this book accepted. supplies some imperious want in the Christianity of mankind, that it supplied it with a fullness and felicity,
which left nothing, at this period of Christianity, to be desired, its boundless popularity is the one unanswerable testimony," shows that he recog-
some of the intrinsic merits of the work. The same cannot be said of another distinguished writer W. M. Thackeray, in a of the same generation.
nised
letter
dated Christmas
of
Day
his
1849,
summed up
his
view
the
book
in
incomparable
the
manner.
"carried
"The scheme
out would
of that book," he wrote,
most wretched, There useless, dreary, doting place would be no manhood, no love, no tender ties of mother and child, no use of intellect, no trade or
the
make
world
of sojourn.
science
set
of
selfish
beings,
crawling about,
avoiding
one
another,
and howling a perpetual
276
THOMAS A KEMPIS
Misererer ^ The mid-nineteenth century, against the materiahsm of which Thackeray tihed with all
his noble might, stood out in extraordinary contrast to the ideal world painted by a Kempis. Social
conditions in
England were
at
that
time at their
very worst. Eighty per cent, of the people were without education, were ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed.
That world might with some

described as containing
justice
have been
"a
set
of selfish beings,
crawling about, avoiding one another,

a perpetual Miserere^
and howling
Extremes meet, a curious
realise that the mystic meeting, especially in a ideals of fact, a path of spiritual Kempis were, escape from the soul-destroying and awful social
when we
conditions of the Middle Ages. The views held by Milman and Thackeray about the Imitation were, however, most unusual among
It is true that Dr Johnson, distinguished thinkers. his believe if we may early biographer, Sir John " Hawkins,^ was for some time pleased with Kempis'
tract
Imitatione Christi, but at length laid it aside, saying that the main design of it was to promote monastic piety and inculcate ecclesiastical
De
obedience"; but
Imitation
in
fact
Johnson's views about the

different.
were
very
He may
have
objected to certain chapters, but the work was a In the year 1778, very real fact in his life.
when he was
^
sixty-nine,
he observed
to
Boswell,
Letters of
WM
.
TJiackeray (London, 1887),

p. 544.
p. 96.
Life ofJohnson (1789),

"
277
Thomas
Kempis must be
good book, as the
to
It is said world has opened its arms to receive it. have been printed in one language or others, as many times as there have been months since it first
always was struck with this sentence in it, Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make He seems to have yourself as you wish to be.'"^
came
out.
'
been a constant reader of the Imitation, and according to Crokers Boswell (p. 884), he told on his
deathbed a curious story of himself in relation to the He said to Mr Hoole, " About two years Imitation. since I feared that I had neglected God, and that then I had not a mifid to give Him on which I set
;
about to read
Thomas
Kempis
in
Low
Dutch,
accomplished, and thence I judged that my mind was not impaired, Low Dutch having no affinity with any of the languages that I knew."^ In another version he stated that he only read a He was in the habit of part of this translation.
which
speaking on the subject of various editions, it seems, for on Monday, May 17th 1784, Boswell dined with him and raised the question " When I mentioned
:
that
had seen
editions of
my
the king's library sixty-three favourite Thomas a Kempis, amongst

in
which
^
it
was
in
eight languages,
Latin,
French,
passage
vis,
2
Italian,
Spanish,
"
English,
vol.
)tes te
Arabic,
iii.
German, and
226).
"
Boswell's Life of Johnson (Hill edition,

is
p.
The
from
lib.
i.
cap. 16,
ii,
Si
non p
talem facere qualem

?
quomodo
poteris alium habere ad

p. 153.
bene placitum tuum
Miscellanies (Hill), vol.
278
THOMAS A KEMPIS
Armenian, he said he thought it unnecessary to collect many editions, which were all the same, except as to paper and print he would have the original, and all the editions which had any variation in the text." The hnitation was in fact very
;
In Fielding's popular in the eighteenth century. novel Joseph Andrews, we find in chapter iii. the " He [Joseph Andrews] told him [Parson passage likewise that ever since he was in Sir Adams]
:
Thomas' country he had employed all his leisure in reading good books that he had read the Bible, the Whole Duty of Man, and Thomas a Kempis, and that he had also studied a great book" Baker's Chronicle. It would be a lengthy task to set up the views of Dean Milman and Thackeray against those of the many great thinkers who used and loved the Imitation and saw nothing either absurd,
;
The famous impossible or selfish in its attitude. in one of his sums letters, Leibnitz, up the whole " The Imitation of Christ is one of the position
:
most excellent
have been composed. Happy is he who puts its contents into practice and is not satisfied with merely reading them." Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle (1657- 1757), the famous a of Corneille, has a curious and essayist, nephew " felicitous passage about the book le plus beau soit de la main des hommes, puisque qui parti n'en vient There is a striking and I'Evangile pas." characteristic passage in J. F. de la Harpe (1739treatises that
1
Letters, p. 77.

1803),
279
describing the emotions that arose from casually reading the Imitation as he lay in prison.
An
he was excitable and impressionable essayist under sentence for libel it is perhaps not surprising that the work should have had certain emotional effects on him. The interest in the passage is that
it
shows one of the many different types of mind by the book. "J'avois sur une table limitation et Ton m'avoit dit que dans cet
that are affected
;
excellent livre je trouverois souvent la reponse a
mes
en
!
pensees.
I'ouvrant,
Je louvre au hasard,
sur ces
:
et je
tombe,
paroles viens a vous parce que vous

:
77ie
void,
nion jils
je
invoqud. Je n'en subite lus pas davantage que j'eprouvai I'impression est au-dessus de toute expression, et il ne m'est pas
mavez
plus possible de la rendre que de I'oublier. Je tombai la face contre terre, baigne de larmes, etouffe de
sanglot, jetant des cris et des paroles entrecoupees. Je sentois mon coeur soulage et dilate, mais en
meme
temps
comme
qu'il
pret a se fendre.
Assailli d'une
foule d'idees et
de sentiments, je pleural assez long-
temps, sans
me
si
reste d'ailleurs d'autre souvenir
de cette
ce n'est que c'est, sans aucune comparaison, ce que mon coeur a jamais senti de et que ces mots plus violent et de plus delicieux rue void, mon fils ! ne cessoient de retenir dans mon
situation,
: ;
ame, et d'en ebranler puissamment toutcs les facultcs." F. R. de Lamennais (1782- 1854), quoting this passage, " Que de graces cachees renferme un livre dont says
:
un
seul passage, aussi court
que simple, a pu toucher
280
THOMAS A KEMPIS
I'orgueil "
:
une ame longtemps endurcie par philosophique!"^ But he adds significantly

de
ne
la sorte s'y
Qu'on
trompe
pas,
cependant
I'lmitation
pour produire ces

et
vives et soudaines impressions,
meme un
effet
vraiment
salutaire,
It
is
demande un
turn
coeur
prepare." interesting French writers to English critics of even higher rank. Thomas Carlyle felt the extraordinary charm
for his
to
from these
of the book, though he shows a characteristic scorn one of its commentators. In 1833 he sent to
mother from Edinburgh a copy of the Imitation,
with an introduction by Chalmers. The latter he declared was "wholly or in great part a dudy Of the book itself he says, " None, I believe, except the
Bible, has
Christians of
been so universally read and loved by all It gives me tongues and sects.
pleasure to think that the Christian heart of my good mother may also derive nourishment and
strengthening from what has already nourished and On the farther side of strengthened so many."
Milman and Thackeray

this striking testimony.
in point of time,
we have man
On
the hither side of these

distinguished
writers
we have an even more

in
March 5th 1861, wrote, think a Tkoinas always Kenipis a golden book for all times, but most for times like these for
"
I
;
writing Gladstone, in a letter dated
subdued tones of the hnitation.
Mr
Limitation de Jesus Christ, traduction nouvelle par M. I'Abbd F. de Lamennais (Paris, 1844, 12th Ed.), p. 5.
^
Froude's Life,
vol.
ii.
p. 2>yi-

though
such
"
it
281
it is
does not treat professedly of sorrow,
wonderful
at
exhibition
of
the
Man
of
:
Sorrows."
I
A year later
(April 4th 1862), he writes
some time try to explain a little more must my reference to Thomas a Kenipis. I have given that book to men of uncultivated minds, who were
I also Presbyterians, but all relish it. it is possible for any one to read that
do not believe book earnestly
from
its
Popish,
beginning, and think of Popish or nonor of anything but the man whom it
^ On the whole I think presents and brings to us." the world will be prepared to accept the tribute of Carlyle and Mr Gladstone rather than the criticism
Mr Gladstone's of Thackeray and Dean Milman. reference to the acceptableness of the book to unminds may well be balanced by its equal acceptableness to minds of the subtlest modern type to Frenchmen such as Comte and Renan, to Englishmen such as De Quincey and Matthew
cultivated
Arnold.
thinker.
We
exactly what the Imitation
are fortunately in a position to know meant to the latter
His Note- Books, as edited by Mrs Wodeshow that over this great and subtle mind the house, work of a Kempis cast a spell that was as lasting as I shall conclude this volume it was all-embracing.
by setting
forth
in
detail
the
references
in
to
the
Imitation entered year by year note-book of the great poet-critic.

1
the
workaday
in brief his
Matthew Arnold's Note-Books contain

Morley's Life of Gladstone^
vol.
ii.
p. i86.
282
THOMAS A KEMPIS
life
philosophy of
as set forth in the aphorisms of
favourite writers.
The
author from
whom
most frequently and most continuously is Kempis, whose thoughts are frequently supplemented by quotations from the New and Old Testaments and the Apocrypha, In Mrs Wodehouse's little volume there are extracts from the first, second, or third books of the Imitation under the years 1857, 1859, The fourth 1863, 1868, 1873, 1878, 1883, and 1888. a Z?^ Altaris work very the tract Sacramento book, from the other tracts, and definitely separated omitted altogether from many manuscripts of the fifteenth century and from all the curious class of manuscripts, mostly English, entitled Musica Ecclesiastica
Its is not represented in the Note- Books. formal theology and attitude differing from that of the other tracts excluded it from Arnold's lists of
he quotes Thomas a
He was in search of the philobooks to be read. sophy and not the theology of life, and one may perhaps believe in view of its exclusion from the
Note-Books that his critical gift recognised, as many transcribers of the fifteenth century recognised, a different hand in a work in which, according to the " de tractatur first edition, specialiter printed venerabili sacramento altaris." The quotations from
the other books cover a period of over thirty years and are numerous. There are in all about a hundred
extracts.
It is difficult to tell
the exact number, as
none of the Imitation quotations are referred to their source, but I have verified nearly ninety and there
283
are others that could probably be traced without It is a matter of considerable much difficulty.
critical
interest to notice the passages that

in
seemed
The carry special weight Imitation has appealed to various types of literary To Leibnitz it was a work of the first thinkers.
to
Arnold's
mind.
magnitude.
He
considered
it
"one of
the most
excellent treatises that have been composed. Happy is he who puts its contents into practice and is not
satisfied
with
it
merely
Johnson
appealed
its
To Dr reading them." with peculiar force and

Renan
felt
its
illuminated his dying hours.
and praised
anonymity. Arnold did not write about a mirror of the soul. used it as he but it, persistently as the humblest
devotee.
To George
Eliot
power it was
again
in
his
Here, he seems to say over and over Note-Books, is the philosophy of life
all even death. things of this philosophy he found in the phrase
that conquers
The key
semper aliquid certi proponendum ^^^ (lib. i. cap. 19). He Life must always have a definite purpose. writes it first in his Note- Book for 1857 the year of his election as the professor of poetry at Oxford
and the further phrase from this chapter secundum propositum nostrum est ctcrsus profectus nostri. The aliquid certi to him was a necessity, find
that
it
where he could.
It
is
alone could shape the course of

find
it
life.
phrase the Note-Books.
The
repeated over and over again in

in
We
1857, 1859, 1863,

it
twice in 1868 and in 1883.
In 1873
is
omitted,
284
but
THOMAS A KEMPIS
we have
in
its
remissus place the phrase Homo tentatur varie et suiim propositum deserens 13). (i. Matthew Arnold at this date had perhaps lost the
aliquid certi of earlier years.
had formally abandoned much that had once seemed essential.
He
An
enthusiasm for humanity,
for
work,
for
the
certainties perfect personal life definitely replaced that had become uncertain.
the Following year 1868 is the year in which is most of Christ (to use the early English title) In that voluminously quoted in the Note-Books.
The
year
we find set out some twenty-two quotations from the first book, eight from the second, and seventeen from the third say some fifty in all. The year was one of great intellectual activity and It opened with the death sorrows.
great personal of his little son
and closed with the death In it appeared his Report on of his eldest son. He also Continental Universities and Schools.
Basil
seems
have been closely engaged in thinking out the theological position that he began to develop in The various books actually read in that year 1870.
to
They included, besides point to this conclusion. the three books of the Imitation, Romans, The Herbert's s Synoptic Gospels. Aristotle Ethics, George Robinsons Poems, Wordsworth, Smit/is Discoiirses,
Sermons, Herkens Idecn, Reimers Goethe, Ldgende Dorde, Renan on St Paul, Proverbs, and The Psalms
after Ewald.
The
Imitation for this year quotations from the
285
form a continuous and complete philosophy of life. They begin with the fundamental aphorism semper
Then follow two aliquid certi proponendtivi est. De Doctrina Veritatis quotations from the chapter
(i.
3),
that carry
et
on the doctrine of the aliquid certi.
Bonus
devotus
homo opera sua
pritis intus disponit
But inward determination is quae oris agere debet. Therefore it is useless without inward conquest. " asked and declared, Who strives more sternly than
he
conquer him.self.^ This is our overcome ourselves and daily to become strongfer than ourselves and move forward " toward better things (i. 3). But a goal and a determination to gain it, even if coupled with the conquest
strives
:
who
to
main
affair
to
of
the great enemy. Ntmquam sis ex toto otiosus, sed aut legensy aut scribens, aut orans, aut meditans, aut aliquid
self, is
is
useless without work.
Idleness
utilitatis
pro communi laborans

life
(i.
19).
But there
are other sides of
beside that of accomplishment. The conquest of passion, the overcoming of temptation, the leading of a good life may be perhaps included in that conquest of self which is essential
to the accomplishment of anything.
But
life
includes
goodness
sake, inward peace that has no faith in God which transcends, and utilitarian purpose, in the hour of bitter grief, all human consolations. We find on these themes a remarkable list of " By resisting passions, passages from the Imitation. " not by obeying them is found true peace of heart "He who is unjust and unpurposeful has 6). (i.
for its
own
286
THOMAS A KEMPIS
(i.
many temptations"
itself
13).
man
for
beyond the need of should so rest in God that

to seek
The soul must human consolations

it
fling "
:
would be needless
(i,
him
many human
consolations"
to ourselves
12).
"If we were but more dead

involved in earthly things, " to taste divine things (i.
will
and
less
we should then be
11).
able
Personal goodness
give us this power.

in
Resiste in principio inclina-
tioni time, et
"If
1 1 quickly ). " And then follows the passionate cry, O, if thou didst but realise how much peace for thyself, how
malam dedisce consuetudinem (i. 11). each year we were to root out one vice, we should become perfect men " (i.
life"
thou wouldst gain by the nobler This (i. 11). personal goodness is related both to the perfect life, whose pattern is in heaven, and to
for others,
life
much joy
the active
world.
But
that looks to the aliquid certi of this is it only by continual watchfulness
that any noble standard can be attained. morning make thy plans, in the evening
"In the examine
thy conduct how thou hast done this day in word, But if attained, it deed, and thought" (i. 19). abolishes selfishness: "The good man envies no
man
quae
soul needs
since he loves no private joy" (i. 15). must seek the highest Tu intende
:
The
illis,
tibi praecipit
:
Deus
(i.
20),
but must seek in
secret
(i.
Nemo
The
20).
secure apparet, nisi qui libenter latet spiritual life does not consist in
outward manifestation and power.

like the cared-for S3ed, in secret.
must grow, Melius est latere

It

et
287
sui
i.
curam
20).
agere, qtiam se neglecto signa facere
(lib.
Arnold then turns again to the necessity of a fixed and definite purpose in life. It is true that the man
with a purpose
may
:
fail,
but the
man
without a
deficit,
purpose must
fail
Si fortiter proponens saepe
quid ille, qui raro aut minus fixe aliquid proponit ? Watchfulness, he repeats, is ever necessary; (i. 19). we must never slumber. How can there be peace
or rest
till
the heart
if
is
holy
"
Woe
to us
if
we
us,
yearn
for rest, as
peace and safety were with

:
when
lives
"
as yet no sign of true holiness appears in our

(i.
est et
vigilanduni orandtim, ne tempus otiose tj'artseat (i. 10). must yearn for the nobler life and cry titinam per unum diem bene essemus conversati in hoc mundo (i. 23),
22).
We must watch and pray
We
We
unto
must die
to ourselves in order that
we may
live
God
quanto quisque plus sibi moritur, tanto

:
magis Deo vivere incipit (ii. 12). When at last we have found peace, we can bestow it upon others
Pone
(ii.
te
3).
primus in pace, et tunc poteris alios pacificare But peace is not found in the world, except
others.
et
by helping
Talk
will
not do
it
vellem
me
:
phiries tacuisse, help others is the
inter homines
way
Si portari vis, porta

pace tenent,
fuisse. to spread the truce of et aliuni sunt, qui seipos in

.
nan
To God
3).
et cu7n aliis
etiam pacem habent
(ii.
Arnold did not take Milman's view as to the pure Altruism selfishness of Haemmerlein's philosophy. was at least one aspect of it si portari vis, porta et
:
288
alium.
THOMAS A KEMPIS
Arnold quotes this more than once. He might have supplemented it by a passage from the same book Diligantur homines propter Jesum (ii. 8). Arnold's quotations go on to declare that there is only one way that the peace-seeker can tread the
:
thorny
to
life
way
of the Cross
"
:
The
and a quiet conscience Cross where we die daily" (ii.
is
only way that leads the way of Holy
12).
The one
all
thing
needful for a
man
is
to cast
all
away
:
self-love
and
to leave himself out of
count
quid illud summe
necessarium ? ut homo om-nibus
relictis se relinquat et
se totaliter exeat, nihilque de privato am,ore retineat.
The
it
further
we
tread the thorny

rise
way
too
:
the harder
for
becomes.
To
of
in
grows harder and harder,

rises
et
the standard
altius
abnegation
spiiîtu
quanto
tanto graviotes cruces semper inveniet ; qtiia exilii sui poena magis From these transcendental ex amore crescit (ii. 12). of Christian mysticism described in the famous regions
quis
profecerit,
chapter
De Regia Via
Sarictae
Crucis
a chapter
that brings into focus the whole mysticism of the the great critic turns, with an early Middle Ages
instinctive grasp of the frailties of human nature, to expose the dangers that so often threaten those who
attempt
mystic religious thereby become, in the sinister eighteenth-century meaning of the phrase, enthusiasts.
to
tread
the
path
of
revivalism,
and
He
sets forth the
Ecclesiasticus,
"
"
warning that a Kempis takes from Beware of reaction and the desires
of the flesh
post concnpiscentias tuas ne eas et a
^
'7'-',
WOODCU'l"
FROM
'IHK I'AKIS KDITIOX OF IH K IRKATISK TIOXK CHRISTI." ISSUED IN l!i8.

1
DK IMITA-

vohtntate hia avertere
(iii.
289
cap
12).
Return
to the
aliquid certi, to the definite purpose with which you set out Fo7'te serva propositum et intentionein rectam
:
ad Dettm
doing
is
(iii.
6).
The inward
consciousness
of
right,
Arnold seems
to feel with Martineau,
the ultimate test of earthly suaviter reqidesces si cor tuu7n
and
spiritual effort
te non reprehenderet a Possess (ii. 6). good conscience and " Truth dwells ever joyful shalt thou be 6). (ii. within us, and from Truth we can draw perfect con-
He
adds
"
solation
Beahim
et
veiûm solatium, quod intus a
veritate percipitur (iii. 16). The internal Will must come into accord with the external Will " Thy will
:
may
it
be mine and
may mine
follow
Thine always
as in perfect harmony" (iii. 15). This doctrine of the Inner Will and the Inner Fountain of Truth is
almost exactly that developed along other lines of It is spiritual thought by Martineau. perhaps Christ the that should Folloiving of singular possess a successive power of revelation that could meet the
spirituality of
Martineau without breaking with the Roman tradition. It is, however, just this power that insures the book's immortality. It has a
message
of
consolation
for
the
noblest
of
each
successive age. The result of the union between the internal and
external will
"
is
In the tearing
the ennobling of the personal life. away of all the lowest delights
(iii.
appears thy blessing"
12).
We
shall rise
above
the praise and glory of the world in this union of the
290
inward
will,
THOMAS A KEMPIS
drawing
its
strength for union from the

:
inward Truth, with the Creator

eriget,
Non
;
totus
quern
Veritas
sibi
subjecit
nee
laudantium ore movebitur, qui totam spent Deo firmavit (iii. 14). The words of the world "if thy pathway is directed from fall unheeded
:
mundus omnium suam in
within thou wilt not greatly heed words that fly past thee from without" (iii. 28). Spiritually armed you
can overcome
all
"
opposition.
Manfully you must
pass through all things and use a strong hand to clear the way" (iii. 35). "To him that conquers is given the heavenly manna, but to the slothful there
remain many miseries"
(iii.
35).
So we come back
But the doctrine again to the insistence on work. of the aliquid certi, and of tireless toil, is now
supplemented by the union between the inward and the outward realities. A sacred Tabernacle where all doubts can be solved has been discovered, therefore
in qudlibet causa intra czim
Moyse
tabernaculum
ad consulendum Dominum (iii. 38). That being we can return to the motive certain, underlying all
Arnold therefore again gives semper aliqziid certi proponendum, est. This certainty will be reached by work, it will be the reward of work Age, quod agis ; fideliter labora in vinea med; ego e7ô merces tua (iii. 47). But, it is again pointed out, outward show and the seeking after praise are hinderers of inward peace
spiritual philosophy.
us the aphorism
"
how
sure a plan
fly
grace to
heavenly from the phantasm of earthly things, to
is it
for the preserving of
291
avoid those outward shows that seem to be a source " of wonder Instead lay hold on God, (iii. 45).
being downcast by no burden Fili, sta firtniter et " break not, my child, under spera in me (iii, 46) the burdens that thou hast, for my sake, taken upon
:
thee
"
(iii.
47).
Bear
all,
cheerfully, manfully
:
eternal
worthy of all things Scribe, lege, capita, gerne, lace, ora, sustine viriliter contraria ; digna est his
life is
omnibus et majoribiis proeliis vita aeterna Then death itself is swallowed in victory
this life
:
(iii.
even
(iii.
47). in
leva igitur faciein

soul,
tuam
in coelo !
and the
triumphant
in the dust, cries
47) out
"Thou, Lord, Thou alone amongst all are perfect and beside Thee there is none other such" (iii. 45). With these last words from the
in faithfulness
Following of Christ did Arnold complete his year of quotations and that philosophy of life which he phrased in the rhythmic Latin of a Kempis. Without
peering with rude eyes into the inner life that stands partly revealed by these note-books, we may say
that his philosophy gave him power to withstand the slings and arrows of untimely death. His
had been taken away and yet he wrote Augustinian, Tu, Domine, tu solus es fidelissimus m omjiibus, et praeter te non est alter talis; and with Baruch (iv. 23), "for I sent you out with mourning and weeping but God will give you to me again with joy and gladness for ever." The year 1868 was clearly one of stress and
eldest son
with
the
storm, of sorrow, disappointment, accomplishment,
292
THOMAS A KEMPIS
least salient, result
and increasing purpose.

if its
Perhaps its most important, was the formation, or rather
the completion, of a philosophy of life that enabled the poet-critic henceforth to move through the world
with a certain unimpairable serenity.
As
the years
go by,
we
see the old
maxims repeated with assured

"If thou desirest to be
;
conviction of their truth.

carried, carry
another"
"According
as a
to himself, "
so shall he begin to live

is
He who
ungirt and unpurposeful
man dies " unto God suffers many

;
temptations"; "True inward peace is found not " " In by obeying but by resisting the passions
;
wrenching away of every base delight will But there are also new appear thy blessing."
the
maxims
"
:
Thou
wilt rejoice at eventide

(i.
if
fruitfully
thou spendest the daylight"
25).
"Strive like a
;
man
let
good root out
"
evil
{certa viiîliter
i.
con-
suetudo consuetndine vincitur, detachment from the world
21).
The
note of
quotation Meditatio7ie Mortis: "Sooner than thou thinkest
There
is
sad
perhaps deepened. from the chapter de
is
men
will forget thee
"
(i.
:
from the third book on me all vain glory
"In
is
23) and one hardly less sad the deep of thy judgments
;
vanished"
(iii.
14).
When we
mood and
ten years
reach the year 1878
we
et
find a cheerier
a mind less in revolt than was the case

before.
Ecce labora
noli conirista?^
he
cries
and adds, Gaudebis
vespeiê si
diem expendas
doctrine of charity and self refructiiose (i. 25). velation is largely set forth. "In the same spirit that
The

(i.
293
"
thou lookest upon others shall they look upon thee

25).
In words that recall the famous saying of

"
:
St Francis he cries
the
Thou
(ii.
art
but what thou art

art
words cannot make thee better than thou

witness
of
by
God"
6).
"None
way
but the
servants of the Cross find the
of blessedness
"He indeed is great (iii. 56). " hath great love (i. 3). These three passages, one from each of the books, come together. They certainly are strong evidence of the unity of conand perfect light"
who
The passage ception that binds the three books. from the third is a parallel to the passage from the
second quoted in 1868 " Non est alia via ad vitam et ad veram internam pacem, nisi via sanctae crucis
:
et quotidianae mortificationis (ii. 12). The passage from the second book is very closely paralleled by the quotation from St Francis at the end of
"
the
fifteenth
is
chapter
in
of
the
third
"
:
for
what
the
every one
saith
first, is
Thy
est,
sight, that
he
is
and no more,
humble St
vere
Francis."
The passage from
magnus
over
paralleled
and
qui magnain habet caritatem, over again in all three.

turns to the Doctrine of the
Matthew Arnold next

:
Way, giving two remarkable quotations from the " third book If thou continuest in My Way thou
shalt grasp the Truth, and the Truth shall set thee " free and thou shalt lay hold on the life eternal (iii.
"
56).
am
the way, the truth, the

essential
"
life
sine via
non
itur, sine vej'itate 7ion cognoscitur, sine vita

{iii.
56).
The
non vivitur music of the Ecclesiastica
294
THOMAS A KEMPIS
Musica sounds through these phrases and draws the mind to the subtle truths that they convey.
The
critic
turns from the ideal to the
workaday
world again with the familiar aphorism twice before " Never be altogether idle, but either be repeated
:
reading or writing or praying or meditating or per" forming some act of usefulness for the community
(i.
19).
Then again he
ad vitam
. . .
turns to the doctrine of the
Way and
alia via
is
repeats the quotation given above [Non est from the second book, and this )
:
"
followed by a repetition of the cry quoted in 1868 O, if thou didst but realise how much peace for
thyself,
how much joy

nobler life!"
for others
(i.
thou wouldst gain

four
first
by
the
11).
Then we have
chapter
of
quotations
from
the
last
the
book that have not been given before: "Without anxiousness and carefulness thou shalt not acquire
excellence
thou givest thyself over unto zeal thou shalt find great peace and feel the lightening of
;
"
"
If
thy labour.
for all things."
thyself,
The
"
eager and careful
man
is
ready
Keep watch upon

;
thyself,
"
awaken
"
admonish thyself
and whatever be the

;
The attitude of others, neglect not thine own life more thou restrainest thyself, the farther shalt thou
followed by three quotations from the " Without a friend eighth chapter of the second book thou canst not live well, and if Jesus be not to thee
go."
This
is
be indeed Be humble and peace-making and and desolate " " Be devout and calm and Jesus will be with thee
a friend above
"
all
friends, sad wilt thou
"

:
295
But these aspirations Jesus will abide with thee." " are hard to attain reprove small things in
We
others, while greater acts in ourselves

(ii.
5).
The
(iii.
old conclusion
is
pass over " In the arrived at

:
we
"
wrenching away
blessing"
of
12).
base delights will appear thy When we reach the year 1883 the
all
quotations have grown sparser, but the old note is still Pone te primo in pace et tunc predominant alios poteris pacificare (ii. 3). "All is vanity save the " i) loving of God and the serving of Him alone (i.
:
alone amongst all art perfect in faithfulness, and beside Thee there is none other
"
Thou
"
Lord,
Thou
such
45). The old certainty seems to be returning, for the Critic turns again to the old fundamental
(iii.
proposition, Semper aliquid certiproponendum est, and adds the sentence, scias pro certo, quia morientem te
oportet
ducere
vitam
(ii.
12)
the
sentence
"
that
introduces the oft quoted aphorism, According as man dies to himself, so shall he begin to live unto
later in the same year we find two from the attack towards the end of the quotations " third book on the natural man Nature is full of
God."
And
greed, loves what is personal and her own, receives Grace is gentle and freely rather than gives freely loves others, lives an unseeking life, judging it better
;
to give than to receive
"
"
(iii.
54).
"
Nature
54).
is
speedily
overcome by want and trouble
(iii.
to the few quotations in the last Arnold's of life we find the old themes still preyear dominant Resiste in prificipio inclinationi ttiae, et
:
When we come
296
THOMAS A KEMPIS
dedisce consuetudinem
malam
God.
is
to conquer thyself
and
to
Begin perfectly walk sturdily in the Way of

(i.
1
"
1).
Then thou
before seemed
wilt think less of those things that " to thee weighty" (ii. 4). truly
He
wise that discerns things as they really are (ii. "The spiritually minded man can speedily take i).
"
courage, for his whole being is not devoted to out" ward things (ii. i). Arnold's last quotation is from
same chapter We must die unto ourselves if we would not be displeased and troubled Ideo multa
the
: :
tibi displicent et saepe conturbayit,
quia adhuc non

a
is
es
perfecte tibi ipsi mortuus. The philosophy of life that
Thomas
last.
Kempis
in
taught
is
maintained to the
in
It
fact
summed up
meant
ages
a paradox the paradox that has everything to the Christian mystic in all
lay aside
he that would
hold
on
personal
im-
self. Matthew Arnold mortality must lay realised and makes us realise that so far from the
philosophy of
Thomas Haemmerlein
"
being a selfish
philosophy, the highest altruism.
it is
in fact the cult of selflessness
and of Put on the new man and

:
be changed into another man,"

to
So spake the
mysterious Hermit in the market-place of Cologne Gerard Groote and so speaks Groote's disciple
;
to all
who
care to listen in the thronged market-place
of this "corruptible" world.
APPENDIX
THE
DE MEDITATIONE CORDIS
OF
JEAN LE CHARLIER DE GERSON

CHANCELLOR OF PARIS
[The present text of this tract is based upon the Leipsic (?) edition printed by Thanner (?), undated, the Milan edition of 1488. an edition of 1492, without named place of origin, and the text contained in the Nuremberg edition of the works of Thomas a Kempis, issued in 1494. The De Mcditatione Cordis appears to have been first printed at Cologne by Ulrich Zel between The text of this Editio princeps 1467 and 1472 (British Museum, I. a. 2802). differs in many small particulars, and in the last chapter differs entirely from The Edilio princeps includes other works by Gerson the text here printed. The work was printed again at Louvain (?) in (on the Seventh Psalm, etc). 1480 (?) in a volume (British Museum, I. A. 43906) containing other tracts of It was subsequently issued Gerson, such as the De Simplificatione Cordis. with numerous editions of the De Imitaiione C/irzji'z between 1485 and 1526, and 1570 and 1575. There appears to be no modern edition. As an internal
test of the
authorship of the Imitation the reader should contrast the style of
work with the passage in Appendix II. from the pen of Thomas a Kempis, and should compare both with the De Imitatione Christi.'\
this
INCIPIT
TRACTATUS VENERABILIS MAGISTRI JOHANNIS GERSON CANCELLARII PARISIENSIS DE MEDITATIONE CORDIS

Cap.
I.
Felix certe Meditatio cordis mei in conspectu tuo semper. istud deo. verbum dicere ex sententia cum qui propheta potest Sed videamus in primis quid sit meditatio cordis, non pro carnali Est autem meditatio vehemens cordis solo sed spirituali corde.
297
298
applicatio
THOMAS A KEMPIS
ad aliquod investigandum
fortis
et
inveniendum.
Et haec
habet difficultatem quae quandocunque major applicatio est quandocunque minor. Quod ut intelligatur presupponatur
ex creditis et ab experientia, cor nostrum conditum esse et tres habere species oculorum mentales oculos rationales oculos Et ex illis est utrobique unus oculus in cognitionem sensuales. Fundatur haec distinctio in altera quod alius in affectionem. dicimus hominem habere portionem seu faciem rationis dupUcem,
quorum
istis
ad temporales, superior vertitur ad leges eternas, altera Sub neutra tamen in actu suo dependet ab organo corporeo.
est ratio demersa corpori quae sensualitas appellatur. Primus oculorum vocatur ab aliis oculus mentis, alter oculus
rationis, tertius oculus carnis.
Cap.
Fuerat ab
initio
ir.
bene conditae rationalis naturae talis ordo merum imperium ordinisque tranquillitas, quod ad nutum et
sensualitas rationi inferiori et inferior ratio superior! serviebat, et erat ab inferioribus ad superna pronus et facilis ascensus,
faciente
hoc
quemadmodum
levitate originalis justitiae sublevantis sursum corda At naturaliter ignis sua levitate sursus fertur.
vero postquam adversus
dominum supremum
ingrata proditio
demeruit auferri justitiam banc originalem subintroiit pondus miseram et captivatam gravissimum concomitans peccatum, quod animam trahere non cessat ad infima, tanquam circumligatad sit
et ferro. funibus, catenis et compedibus vincta, in mendicitate Sic quidem mirabili immo miserabili confusione facta est ordinis in homine sic merso tenebris et carcere prioris perversio, quod caeco conturbatus est in ira triplex utrimque oculus per im-
perfectionem in
sensualitate
rationis perfectione et per rationis portione.
obnubilationem in inferiori quamdam excaecationem in superior!

per
Cap. III.
Habemus
ecce causam
primam
difficultatis
quam
in meditatione
sentimus, quam in habendis semper ad dominum oculis experimur. Facit hoc penalis ilia gravedo deorsum jugiter impellens quemadmodum videre est sensibiliter in aqueductu qui tota facilitate
APPENDIX
defluit in(f )ima.^
violentia,
299
Continetur aut vel sursus levatur non nisi cum cor ad infima pronum leviter effluit hac illacque " facilis descensus veluti sine retinaculo vel labore quum Averni," " sed revocare gradus superasque evadere ad auras, hoc ait poeta,
non
aliter
opus, hoc labor est."
Cap. IV.
Perscrutemur consequenter ex praedictis naturam seu proprietatem meditationis, quoniam ex hoc ipso quam necessaria nobis Diximus autem et ad deum tendentibus existat videbimus.
repetimus quod meditatio est fortis et vehemens applicatio vel attentio animi ad aUquod investigandum vel inveniendum fructuose. Addimus fructuose ne meditatio vergat aut in suspicionem aut in Dicamus ergo curiositatem aut in melancolicam stoliditatem. complectentes quod meditacio est vehemens et salubris animi
applicacio ad aliquid investigandum vel experimentaliter cogno-
scendum.
tionis
quae diversa
cognitionis.
affectionis
Ponimus hoc ultimum propter naturam ipsius affecsortitur nomina proportionaliter ad condicionem Non enim potest aliter affectio cognosci quam ex-
perimentaliter ab eo qui per
eam
afficitur.
Quam
cognicionem non potest eam habens
in
experimentalem alterum verbis
quibuslibet infundere nisi similiter affectus sit alter ille. Quoniam solus novit (sicut in Apocalypsi scribitur) qui accipit. Propterea vocatur manna absconditum. Exemplum est perspicuum in illo Sic medicus qui novit dulcedinem mellis solum per doctrinam.
sanus noscit infirmitatis dolorem. Haec autem dulcedo a gustante, hie dolor ab aegrotante aliter longe cognoscuntur.
Cap. V.
Perpendamus ex
meditacionis
in affectu.
alis
his
ait
quam profunde
"
senserit propheta
naturam
dum
in
meditatione
est, et
mea
exardescet ignis,"
utrumque enim complexus
lumen
in intellectu et
ardorem
Quam
exardescat
elici.
vero sit difficile quod ignis devotionis spirituflatu meditacionis fiet notum considerantibus
lignis
ignem materialem cum quaeritur a

respersis
Suffla
aquosis viridibus luto
multo emerget plurimus ab initio fumus conturbans Disperges oculos, vix emicabit scintilla quae mox evanescet.
quantum
potes, iterum atque iterum
conatu
resuffla,
was probably "
In the Editio princeps this reads "in yma."

in intiina."
The
correct
MS.
reading
300
forsitan
iratus
:
THOMAS A KEMPIS
Quam
congesta prius ligna, si non in longanimitate longanimitatem appellamus hie meditationem
praestiteris
aut meditationi conjungendam.
Cap. VI.
Meminimus nedum latino

tali.
vel industrias aliquas nos scripsisse doctrinas sed Gallico sermone super habenda meditacione
Licet fortassis uteremur aliis terminis in tractatulo de mistica theologia, parte ea quae praxim ejus docet, et in altero
de monte contemplacionis edito, in altero rursum de mendicitate Denique tanta reperitur difficultas, tanta spirituali compilato. diversitatem hominum varietas, in practicando doctrinam
per verae sanctaeque meditacionis, quod an silere vel aliquid scribere consultius sit videor egomet mihi ipsi quandoque sub dubio
fluctuans.
Cap. VII.
Dum
secluso
enim recogito quod absque meditacionis
exercitio nullus,
dei miraculo speciali, ad perfectionem contemplacionis ad rectissimam Christianae religionis dirigitur aut pervenit, nullus normam vir se componit, audeo zelans ardeoque studium sanctae
At vero, dum totiens expertus pericula meditacionis suadere. sedulus recogito difificultatem et arduam raritatem perveniendi efificior. quo trahere meditatio nititur, ego quasi torpens et stupidus nimium venit sic frequenter quod Quaesierit aliquis quo pacto in morbum expertum est studium meditationis converti dilabique
melancolicae passionis propter immoderacionem, vel propter superbiam dari in reprobum sensum diabolycae illusionis.
Cap. VIII.
scimus vinum in id quod dicimus Sic enim scripesse. conditum salutem hominis jocunditatem tamen ex abusu potantium, praetura, sic ratio loquitur. Videmus
Manducamus exemplis
et
sertim
dum
febrium discrasia laborant, quod potus

vel
vini,
alioqum
salubris,
causat
aegritudinis
furorem aut quandoque mortem.

quis aegrotos quis febricitantes
augmentum vel maniam et Nos autem filios omnes Adam

esse pessimis
et
fel
Quibus utuntur in nauseam divinorum eloquiorum verba, quibus in

negaverit
?
animae febribus amaritudinem optima

convertitur suavissiquam ex intima
mus
divini
verbi
panis.
Heu
miseros heu
APPENDIX
consideracione
talis
I
"
301
conclamavit apostolus Infelix, " mortis hujus ? de liberabit me Subjungit, corpore ego, quis "Gratia Dei per Jesum Christum."
miseriae
Cap. IX.
viciorum
Quid abimus precipites per abrupta Quid agimus ergo? ? Ibimusne post desideria cordis nostri et in adinvenpessimis, desperati,
sine lege,
tionibus nostris
sine freno,
sine
ordine?
Num
sordidae, tiones vel edificationes allaturae sunt, sed desolacionem, mesticiam, et ruinam, oblectantibus se in eisdem ? Respondebimus ne-
quidem sufficient nobis cogitationes instabiles, fluxae, somniorumque simillimae, quae non consola-
quaquam id fieri debere, sed adsit discretio moderatrix in omnibus, quam non securius habere post divinam gratiam poterimus,
quam
per sedulum et securum alterius experti, nosque diligentis
et agnoscentis, consilium.
Cap. X.
Clamat
vita
Aristoteles,
vocem
ut
sunt
circa
;
difficilia,
experientiae loquens, quod ars et ars pingendi, ars scribendi, ars
cytharizandi
hoc verum
sic
virtus caritatis, virtus fortitudinis, virtus sobrietatis ; intelligendum est, quod ab initio virtus et ars
difficultates,
multas in acquisitione sua patiuntur

conquisitae facilia sunt
tatus in arte
dixerit
;
dum vero
fuerint
idem
pingit faciliter pictor exercisic de scriptore, sic de cytharizante, videmus, ita ut Aristoteles quod ars perfecta non deliberat, tam
eis.
Omnia
sibi facilis est actus suus.^
Cap. XI.
Utamur ista comparatione dum de meditatione loquimur attendamus quod in trahendo passim lineas picturae vel scripturae difficultas nulla est, sicut nee in discussione digitorum Invenimus similiter in cogitatione non per cytharae chordas. enim difficulter aut laboriose nunc hoc nunc illud prout occurSed quod nuUus inde resultet effectus vides in rerit cogitatur.
; ;
sic
1
pingente
sic scribente et sic cytharizante, ita
neque prorsus
in
"
In the Editio princeps (Cologne, 1467-72) the "Nona Consideratio The edition is comprises chapters ix. and x. as given in the above text. " divided into seventeen Considerationes," each of which has its own title.
302
sic cogitante taverit, ut dicit
:
THOMAS A KEMPIS
immo cum
Seneca,
fit
se talibus cogitationibus vagis oblectristis
studiose, et attentissime,
et cytharizando,
cum
remanebit. Porro laboriose, mira tarditate pingendo, scribendo,

ut
quandoque
bene
et celeriter ista fiant.
Cap. XII.
ista? Nimirum ut ostendamus queumadmodum de nuUus unquam proficiet aut emerget in meditationem cogitatione Ex meditatione vero quae quanto minus in contemplationem. summam habet difficultatem, si bona fide, simplici, et discreta, diligenter exerceater, perveniemus ad banc perfectionem, quod
Quorsum
absque
sibit
ulla
difficultate
fiet
apud nos fructuose quod summo

;
meditationis
Ita denique tranconquirere voluimus. non enim differt meditatio meditatio in contemplationem
studio
a contemplatione
fructus aliter
nisi
penes
facile et difficile,
quum
utrobique est
quam
in cogitatione.
Cap. XIII.
Describitur autem contemplatio quod est liber et expeditus mentis intuitus in res perspiciendas usquequaque, et hoc quoad contemplationem quae respicit intellectum ; porro quoad contemplationem quae constitit in affectu et in praxi, describit cam Hugo quod est per sublevantem mentis jubilum mors quaedam Hoc est gustare quam suavis est carnalium desideriorum.
Dominus
fuerit
quem gustum
solum
intellectualis
sequitur alia longe cognitio quoniam visio vel quaedam auditio per fidem
:
aut per scripturam.
Cap. XIV.
Meditabitur ecce aliquis, gemens et suspirans ut columba, cum propheta, " meditatus sum nocte cum corde meo, exerFacit hoc anxie difficulter citabar et scopebam spiritum meum." et laboriose recogitando, nunc omnes annos suos in amaritudine animae suae, nunc judicia Dei quae sunt abyssus multa in coelo
dicet
sursum et in abyssis deorsum, et ita de reliquiis circa quae versatur meditantis attentio vehemens, ut ea quae meditatur vel cogitat limpidius vel firmius in affectum suum trahat, efficiet
tandem
ut haec
omnia
tanta felicitate recogitet et sapiat.
Quam
APPENDIX
facilis est
303
si dubiipsa cogitatio decent nos exempla praedicta habent laboris non enim scriptor, pictor, cytharista, tamus, plus bene agendo quod optime didicerint, quam vagus et vanus aliquis
ab
initio discurrens
sine arte et ordine per lineas picturae vel
scripturae aut per cytharae chordas.
Cap. XV.
Addendum
ita
est
ad praemissa nihilominus quod

arte
vir est aliquis
ad aliqua vel cognoscenda vel agenda proficere qualia necesse est ut non Multo magis hoc verum est in ipsa de qua habeat cum labore. loquimur meditatione quae novos veritatis aut devotionis fetus
perfectus in
sua quin
assidue
possit
jugiter
Sed non deest parturitionis dolor parere student. " in dolore propter illud maledictum, spiritualiter intellectum, " tamen meminit non tuos filios passurae propter paries gaudium quod natus est sibi novus cognitionis et affectionis
:
sanctae fetus in animi sui
mundum.
Cap. XVI.
Venit autem ab initio frequentius ut dum aliquis nondum purgatus a viciis satagit meditari ut columba, meditatur quasi vetus simia dolos [et] odia, meditatur sicut canis rabiosa " silentia rodens," juxta verbum satirici, meditatur quasi sordida
sus,
dum
foedissimas in animo versat reversatque cogitationes.
Quid porro de blasphemii spiritu, quam abominabilis, quam horridus non nunquam resurgit, territans meditantem, loquens adversus Deum sanctos sanctasque ingentia quae nee fari licet ?
Jaciuntur infidelitatis jaculae, baratrum desperationis aperietur. Experimentum quoque manifestat quam recte jusserit sapiens " accedens ad servitutem Dei, praepara animam tuam ad fili, " " sta in timore tentationem Sequitur praesidium certissimum beatus enim vir qui semper est pavidus."
:
Cap. XVII.
Pavidus vero semper quo modo beatus quaeret aliquis dum timor additur timori scrupulus scrupulis pusillanimitas pusillanimitati, praesertim cum non adest assidue conciliator dux et permonstrator itineris arti
et
recti
si
vero
talis
qui rarus est inventus
304
forte
fuerit
THOMAS A KEMPIS
cum
otio
novum meditantem
erit
instruendi
Si
libuerit,
felix
quidem
ipse novus tiro.
quantum tamen protinus
absque uUa trepidatione paratus est credere concilio, sed O quoties bone Jesu, quoties hesitabit et idem repetet iterum
iterumque, quasi falli reformidans, quaeret idem, denique non utetur erga dantem sibi concilium doctrina Jacobi, quae est ut Scripsi quaedam super hujuspostulet in fide nihil haesitans. modi scrupulis tractatulo de praeparatione ad missam aliquid similiter de cautelis contra spiritum blasphemiae durissimum adversus quae remedium optimum est contemnere nee curare
;
:
quin
potius
in
irridere.
Neque super
his
solicite
confiteri, nisi
forsitan
principio pro cautela ad habendum concilium. De scrupulis vero teneatur haec regula, quod adversus eos agendum est, si ita prudens aliquis et expertus conciliator
dictaverit,
mandaverit, aut jusserit, nee aget in hoc contra consciam suam demeritorie, dum illam ad concilium sapientiorum per rationis libertatem ab animo suo mutat et disponit, quamvis assidue sensualitatis remurmuratio forte sentiatur Rursus alioquin nunquam fiet in pace Deo locus cordis. advertendum quod, sic dicente Aristotele, omnis nostra cognitio
;
venit a sensu, iterum necesse est omnem intelligentem phantasmata speculari. Sic originatur meditatio nostri cordis a sensibilibus quae figurata sunt et colorata et caeteris accidentibus
Hinc sunt meditationes contemporis et loci circumvoluta. vel hinc pictae sculptae hinc generaliter fit imagines scriptae " meditatus sum in omnibus operibus tuis et in istud psalmistae,
factis
manuum tuarum
corporalia.
sunt
ultra
progredi, " sicut dicit Apostolus, invisibiUa quoniam invisibilia Dei, ex sunt his quae facta intellecta, conspiciuntur, sempiterna quoque
:
meditabar," quae utique facta vel opera Nihilominus debet assurgere meditans et veluti per scalam aliquam, ex visibilibus ad
virtus ejus et divinitas."
Propterea, docens nos a corporalibus " secundum et si Christum ad spiritualia migrare, dicebat, carnem cognovimus, nunc tamen secundum carnem non cognos-
cimus."
Cap. XVIII.
Advertendum vero quod meditaturis duplices
inter caeteras
tenduntur insidiae, una dum petunt concilium super occurrentibus altera scrupulis in meditatione sua, praesertim mulier a viro
;
APPENDIX
dum sunt in
II
305
actu meditationis. Fit in primo casu crebrius et levius multis credi potest aglutinatio quaedam animorum velata a quam Quae primo confabulapallio sanctae devotaeque dilectionis. tionibus sub tipo quaerendi concilii quaeritur ; de hinc anima
confricata caiescit et sensim igne caeco carnalis
veluti
amoris
risus intelligitur primo donee tandem ad Avertat Deus leves ad facetos blandosque gestus perventum est " " Timeo inquit apostolus a servis suis quod reliquum silemus. " ne dum Scripsi jam spiritum coeperitis carne consumamini." in tractapluries talia consequenter ad Augustinum, nominatim
carpitur et uritur,
nee
Incurrunt aliud periculum meditatulo de probatione spirituum. tiones dum in solis phantasiis, dum solis imaginibus corporeis
fit perinde et toto corde vehementer incumbunt in transire dum meditans contemplationem coUabatur satagit quod ad melancolicam seu piiantasticam lesionem, ita tandem ut imagines
se
tradunt,
iterum versatas in imaginativa virtute pro rebus ipsis exterioribus Non accipiat ; et sic evenit in somniantibus dum dormiunt. aliter istis in vigilia contingit, quorum verba et opera nulla inter se conectione nullum ordinem servant ubi neque est principium
neque finis ubi, sicut vulgo dicitur, neque est caput neque cauda, sed de gallo fit saltus ad cygnum, ita ut vigilantes somniare " ilz resuent on font en videantur, de quolibet dicunt vulgares, Porro timent non timenda sperant non speranda, nunc resuerie." nunc subito maerore tabescunt dissolvuntur quales gaudio egent amplius fomento Socratis quam monitione sapientis. Explicit Johannis Gerson Cancellarii Parisiensis de Meditatione
;
Cordis.^
APPENDIX
Liber Ortuli
II
aviore
Rosarum Thomae Kempis Capitulum XVI. de

Christi et odio mundi.
salubris
Manete in dilectione mea. Vox Christi vox dulcis ad audiendum, omnibus ad obediendum. Amor Christi jocunditas mentis,
paradisusanimae; excludit mundum, vincit diabolum, claudit infernum, aperit coelum. Amor Christi et mundi contrarii sunt et nihil
^
The
17th Consideratio of the Editio princeps
is
entirely different.
306
commune
THOMAS A KEMPIS
:
Amor Christi habent, nee simul commorari possunt. currus helye [helii ?] ascendens in coelum ; amor mundi quadriga dyaboli trahens ad infernum. Amor sui lesio sui oblivio mundi
inventio
celi.
Plus nocet blanda locutio
ficti
amici
quam dura
Cogitatio dolosi fingit mendatia ; mens correptio hominis justi. Non evadet scandalum, qui alteri justi recte procedit in causis.
infert
Rector et cognitor omnium Deus non diu scandalum. suam oviculam errare et balare, sed aut baculo timoris patitur feriens revocat, aut amoris oculo intuens ad consciam reducit. Ubi pax et concordia ibi Deus et omnia bona. Ubi lis et
:
dissensio
ibi
diabolus et omnia
:
mala.
Ubi humilitas
:
ibi
:
Ubi superbia ibi radix maliciae. Vince superbiam sapientia. et invenies pacem magnam. Ubi dura verba ibi laeduntur
charitatis
: :
ibi viscera. Ubi solitude et silentium quies monachorum. Ubi labor et disciplina ibi perfectus religiosorum. Ubi risus et dissolutio ibi fugit devotio. Ociosus et verbosus raro compunctus, raro a delicto purus. Ubi prompta ibi operis obedientia ibi laeta conscientia. Ubi fabulatio longa Ubi propria exquisitio ibi caritatis defectus. Ubi negligentia. ibi salus animae crescit. doctrina Christi viget Ubi fratrum conUbi mediocritas servatur ibi virtus cordia ibi dulcis melodia. concordiae diutius perseverat. Ubi discretio in corripiendo
:
ibi culpas aliorum custoditur facile praelato indignari. Inquit

:
nemo
modus
Claude
est
pulcherrima virtus."
" quidam omnibus adde modum Ubi patientia ibi magna hostis
: :
juste conquer! debet nee
victoria.
Ubi
oris
turbatio
et
ostium
intrat ibi pax cito de domo recedit. pondera verba tua antequam loquaris. Ubi
:
fides et Veritas ibi
pacis securitas.
stulta cogitatio et caeca
prudentia.
:
Ubi dolus et Ubi caritas

Ubi
:
nequitia
:
ibi
ibi
spiritus
sanctus.
Ubi
levis
:
veritatis cognitio
ibi
ibi
ibi frequens suspitio recta cordis laetitia.
Ubi indignatio. ficta narratio

:
saepe amici deceptio latet. Ubi humilis confessio ibi facilis Ubi terrena sapientia deficit ibi divina proveniae impetratio. tectio amplius est invocanda. Quicunque malitiose injusta praePax multa bene agenti malum finem tendit, ipse consequetur.
:
et
Vae impio in malo et ficto in ad patientiam se preparanti. bono, quoniam nemini plus nocet iniquitas sua quam ipsa sibi. Ubi duplicitas ibi inconstantia et multa nequitia. Bene simplici et justo sine dolo, quoniam Deus cum eo dirigens omnia opera
:
ejus itinere recto.
Qui verbum suum male
servat quis facile ei
APPENDIX
credet
?
II
307
non
infringit.
qui autem verbum suum in melius mutat, verbum veritatis Delectabile est bona audire, sed laudabile magis
opere exercere.
Optima
collatio vitae
emendatio
fructus
bonae
collationis abstinere a peccatis at proficere in virtutibus. Fructus devotae orationis unire cor suum cum Deo in fervore sancti spiritus.
Ille
crucifixi sibi praeponit,
devote orat qui omnia vana a se excludit. Qui imaginem Diabolica phantasmata cito repellit. Pulchra
animae imaginatio passionis Christi jugis recordatio. Qui sacra Jesu

vulnera quotidie pensat mentis suae vulnera mitigat purgat et curat. Qui omnia terrena tanquam lutum vilipendit nee honores
desiderat, cordis
Ille
acquirit et ideo libere vacare potest. laudat et honorat qui se ipsum profunde humiliat et defectus suos caute considerat gemit et plorat. Magnus clamor in auribus Dei ^ vera contritio cordis ex ore humilis pectoris. Quidquid boni facis ad laudem Dei facias.
mundiciam
Deum summe
Qui virtutes suas et aliorum quaelibet opera bona simpliciter et integre pure et libere ad laudem et honorem Dei refert, totum Deo ascribendo, nil meritis suis nee viribus attribuendo, sed ab
omnibus se spoliat et denudat, superbiam invidiam et vanam gloriam funditus calcat et necat. Eterna namque gloria et honore
se privat qui in se et
non in Deo solo summo bono gaudet. Ideoque beata virgo Maria pro maximis donis sibi collatis in suo
devotissirno cantico jubilans dicit " exultavit spiritus meus in Deo " salutari meo." Qui se aliquid esse putat cum nihil sit se ipsum " seducit ait apostolus Paulus, qui in tertium caelum raptus - non
est ex
hoc
elatus, sed
quidquid boni
fecit,
docuit, et dictavit,
hoc
totum
sura."^
fideliter
Deo
attribuit, dicens
"
Gratia Dei
sum
id
quod
'Compare de Imitatione Christi, lib. iii. cap. 5: ^''Magnus clamor in auribus Dei est ipse ardens affectus animae quae dicit Deus meus amor meus Tu totus meus, et ego tuus !" This identity of phrase (hitherto unnoticed) is remarkable (see p. 214 above). " Etiamsi rajjtus fueris Compare de Imitatione Christi, lib. ii. cap. 12:
:
'*
in tertium
^
coelum cum Paulo."

Edition, 1494, of the works of
Nuremberg
Thomas
a Kempis,
fol.
157^.
INDEX
Abelard,
Adam
i8i, 257-9, 263 of Usk, 9 (n.), 38-40
Adrian V. (Pope), 21. Age of Thomas a Kempis, 103-5

Agnes, Mount St, 83, S8-92 Alain de Lille, 18S Albertus Magnus, 66, 254, 263 Alcuin, 255 Alexander III. (Pope), 59-60 Alexander V. (Pope), 30-1 Alfege, St, 257
Bernard, St, 71, 124, 139, 140, 172, 186, 197, 201, 207-16, 251, 259, 260 Venetian de Bernardus Benalus, printer of 1488, 127 Berri, Due de, 27 of edition Cardinal, Bessarion's, Bernard, 1 80- 1 Bible, the Itnitation and the, 176-9 Black Death, 2, 72 Blois, Henry de, 57 Bodleian MSS. of the Imitation,
117-8, 122, 164, i6g {also List)
Ambrose, St, 115 Anagni, Popes resident at, 6 Andronicus, Emperor of the East, 5
Boethius, Severinus, 254 Boheme, the rector of
Deventer
Anne
of Savoy, 5 Anselm, St, 66, 193-4, 257 Aquinas, Thomas, 66, 67, 186,
Grammar
School, 86
1S8,
254> 263 Aquisgranense Capiitilare, 53 Aristotle, 180, 181, 262 Arnold's, Matthew, Note-books, 281 -96 Aronensis, Codex, 182, 190 {and
Bonaventura, St, 67, 151, 152, 197, 201 Bonham, William, bookseller, 155 Boniface VIII. (Pope), 6, 21
Boswell, 277 Bridget of Sweden, St, 10-13, 51 of Britannicus, Jacobus, printer, Brescia, in 1485, 123-4 British Museum MSS. of the Imitation, 106-17 {also List) Brothers of Common Life, 64, 81-3,
Introduction)
Arundel, Archbishop, 65
Augsburg edition of the

(1471?), 119, 125 Augustine, St, 115,
et seq., 215,
Imitation
186,
185,
199
85-93> 99-100 Burgundy, Duke
of, 29,
44
253 Aurelius, Marcus, 253 8, 12, 14, 17 7, Avignon, 4,
But, Adriaan de, Flemish chronicler, 98, 169
Barlaam,
Bernard,
the
Calabrian,
5. 20 Babylon of the West, Avignon, the, 8 Admirable Bacon, (The Roger Doctor), 67, 254
Caboche the Burgundian, 33 Cajetan, Constantine (advocate of the claims of Gersen of Vercelli), 141 {and Introduction) Calor, Canor, and Dulcor, ']\,^\
Canabaco, Johannes de, 140 Cantacuzene, the Emperor
of
Bale, John, Bishop of Ossory, 151, 154, 159, 161

Basle, Council of, 13 Bellere, Jean, printer, {d. 1595), 96 Benedict XI. (Pope), 7
of
the
Antwerp
East, 5 Carisiaca, Synodus, 54 Carlyle, Thomas, 280 Catharine of Siena, St, 10, 13-14, 51 Celestines at Lyons, 46
Benedict XII. (Pope), 5, 7 Benedict XIII. (Pope), 17,22,27-8,35
Chalons-sur-Saone, Council
of,
54
Charlemagne, 5
309
310
INDEX
Franciscus de Madiis, Venetian printer in i486, 125
Charles VI., ig, 29 Chaucer, 83, 183 Cherubim and Seraphim, 193 Chrysostom, 253 Clement V. (Pope), 7 Clement VI. (Pope), 5, 7 Clement VII. (Pope), 7, 17, 18, 21, 22 Clive, Theodoric, 99, 100 Cloves-hoo, Council of, 58 Colini, Johannes, a Melz printer,
in 1481, 120-1
Gallipoli, capture of, by the Ottomans, 3 Geersem, 117 Geneva, medieval education at, 62 Gerbert (Pope Sylvester II.), 173, 256-7, 263
Gerlac, John, 102-3 Gersem, 117
Constance, Council of, 36-45, 112-3 Constantine, the Emperor, 5 Constantinople, 3 Contemplatione, De, 1 06- 7, 262
51,
Gersen of Vercelli,
duction)
le
117 {and Intro-
Cur Deus Homo (Anselm),
193
195,
196,
Charlier de, 2, 8, 15Gerson, Jean 51, 112, 224, 225, 227 Gladstone, William Ewart, 280-1 Glasgow, education in, in the Middle
Dante Alighieri,
Ages, 62
Gloucester, mediaeval education at, 64 " the Gospel," Everlasting, 261 Grabon, Matthew, at the Council of
194,
201, 204 David of Augsburg, 69
Dionysius Areopagus, 192, 233 Dominic, St, 263 Third Order of St, 13 Dundee, education in, in the Middle Ages, 62
Constance, 43
Duns
Scotus, 67, 224
Greek Church, 4, 9 Gregory the Great (Pope), 115, 192 Gregory IX. (Pope), 21 Gregory XI. (Pope), 7, 12, 15 ,21 Gregory XII. (Pope), 17, 28, 35
Groote, Gerard, 51, 77-83, 296
Dygoun, John, the Scribe of Sheen,

165,
266
Haemmerlein (Thomas
a Kempis),
EcKHARDT,
Meisler, 69, 73, 75, 205 (n.), 215, 216, 264
EUjah, 201 English Mysticism, 68
83, 87, 91, 173. 197, 287 Hampole, Richard Rolle of {see Rollc) Hatton, Hon. Charles, 145-150 Hickes, George, the Non-juror, 143, 150
Enoch, 201
Erigena, John Scotus, 186,192,231,255 Eugenius II. (Pope), 54 Everyman, 195 the William, Exmeuse, English mystic, 143
Hierotheus, 233
Parisian printer in 1489, 128 Hilton, John, 143, 151 Hilton, Walter, 73> 97, "3. 139-69 Hirsche, Dr, and the authorship of the
Higman, Almanus,
Fielding, Henry, 278

Filioque Clause, the, 4 Fishlake, Thomas, English mystic, 152 Fitzstephen, William ("History of
hiiitation, 139, 184, 187, 189,
212
London,"
11 80),
60
Flack, Martin, Argentine printer in 1487, 126 Flete, William, the EngHsh mystic (1380), 142-3 Florentius of Deventer, 51, 86-9 Fontenelle, B, le B. de, 278-9 Fontibus, Lowys de, the English
mystic, 143, 152 Francis, St, 196-9, 263
Horsley, Adam, 153, 166, 169 Plugo of St Victor, 66 Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, 140, 157 Hus, John, 34, 42-3 Hutton, Rev. A. W., 74
Imitation, the,
(see Lists)
MSS. and
editions of
Immaculate Conception,
16-9
doctrine
of,
Ingram, Dr
mediseval
I.
K., the editor of the English version of the
Imitation, 163
INDEX
Inge, Rev.
311
W. R., 75, 230-3 Innocent III. (Pope), 140, 262 Innocent VI. (Pope), 5, 7, 17, 21 Innocent VII., 28 Innocentia Puerili, Gerson's tract
24
15, 46,
Magister Scolarum, 56-60 Malleolus (Thomas a Kempis), 243 Manuscripts of the Imitation (see Lists)
i?^,
Princess, Margaret, Imitation, 1 504, 168
edition
of
Mark,
52
Jeanne d'Arc,
Jerome, St, 115
Joachim the Cistercian, 261 John XXII. (Pope), 7 John XXIII. (Pope), 31-41
John's Johnson, Samuel, 276-8
Gospel, St,
Gospel of St, little used by a Kempis, 176 Martineau, James, 289 Master of Masters, Christ the, 226 Maurice, Emperor of the East, 37
Thomas
Maximus
of Turin, 191
no
Mechthild of Magdeburg, 73 Meditatione Cordis, De, 49, 122-136, and Appendix i (text of)
Kempen,
town of, 84 Kempis, John a, 83, 99,

the
122, 140
Milman, H. H., 273-5

100,
118,
Kempis, Thomas a, 83-103, 135 (and see Parts IV. and V. passim) and the Renaissance, 172 and Scholasticism, 223-5 Kirchheim Manuscript (1425) of the Imitation, 96
Ladder of Spiritual
ton's,
PerfectioJi,
Mittelhus, Georgius, Parisian printer in 1496, 132-3, 201, 217 Montesson, Jean de, 16-19 Mtisica Ecclesiastica, 139-169
Neo-Platonism,
Christian, 230
Hil-
Netherlands, Mysticism in the, 202 New learning, i, 2 Nicolas I. (Pope), 54 Nicolas V. (Pope), 140
142 Lanfranc, 257 Lateran, Fourth Council of, 54 (n.), 55 Third Council of, 54 (n.), 60 Latin Fathers, the four, 115
Nirvana, 231
Orleans, Due de, 27 Ottoman Turks, 3

Ovid, 181-183 Oxford, 65
schools
at,
Laude
Scriptoriivi,
De, Gerson's, 49
Laurence, St, 191 Lawisby, John, 159 Lee, Francis, 150 Leland, John, 155 Leo III. (Pope), 54 Leonardus Pachel
56
5
PALitOLGGUS, John, Manuel, 6

de
Alamania,
printer of Milan in 1488, 127-8 Little Alphabet of a Monk, 21 1
Lollardy, 65, 72, 80, 172
Lombard,
61
Loslein,
London education
Peter,
Peter, 66, 260 in the Middle Ages,

printer
Paris, Theological Faculty of, 17 University of, 16, 27, 65 Passion of Our Lord, MS. of, 108 Paul's School, 63 Pery, John, 143 Peter, Apocalypse of, 191 Petit, Jean, 29, 33, 44, 47, 52
of
Venice,
Petrarch, 5, 7 Philip the Fair, 6

Philo, 253 Pierre d'Ailly, 16, 17-19, 37 Pisa, Council of, 29, 30, 40
Pitreius,
1483, 121 Louis, St, 19 Ludolph of Saxony, 140 Lucan, 183, 184
Luce, Johannes, printer borch in 1493, 131-2
of
Lune-
Pits,
Lyons, Gerson
at, 50,
51
Theodorus, 149 John, bibliophile, 145-6, 148, 165 Plato, 262

Pliny, 183-4 Plotinus, 201,
147,
Maganza, John
Peter de, Florentine printer in 1497, 133
206-7,
217,
230-2,
253
312
Possevinus, 149
INDEX
Tauler, John,
239, 264
74, 75,
217,
218,
Prague, 34
Priviligiati, the, 71,
76 Pseudo-Dionysius, 233 [see Dionysius) Purgation, illumination, consummation, 246 Puyol, Monsignor, 180, 182, 183 Pygouchet, Philip, Parisian printer in
1491,
1
Terence, MS.
of, ili
Thackeray,
W.
M., 275-6, 281

53
Theodolfi. Capifitlare,
Theologia Germanica, 216 Theological Consolations, 45, 46
30- 1
in
Pynson, Richard, London printer 1503, 137
Thomacelli, Pietro, 27 Thurgarton, Walter de (Hilton), 151 Timour, 6 Traits de Mendiciti Spirituelle, Gerson's, 22-3 Trechzel, Johannes, printer of Louvain in 1489, 129 Trent, Council of, 19 Trivium, 16, 53 Turin, Council of (858), 54
QUADRIVIUM,
16, 53
Quincey, de, 281
Rabanus Maurus, 255

Rainaluzzi, Peter, 140 Ratdolt, Erhardt, printer of Augsburg in 1488, 129 Revelatiofis of St Bridget, no- 1 2 Richard II., King of England, 34
Ubertinus de Casalis, 140 Ulpho, husband of St Bridget, 10

Urban V. (Pope), 5. 7, 12 Urban VI. (Pope), 7, 15, 17, 80
the Emperor, 191 Victor, Hugo of St, 66, 260, 263 Victor, Richard of St, 66, 261 ^îctorinus Afer, 205-6
Richard, "hermit," 70 Richard of St Victor, 66, 72, 261 Rienzi, 9 RoUe, Richard, of Hampole, 69-72,
83,
Valerian,
"3
Romanum,
Concilium, 54 Ruysbroek, John of, 75, 216, 221-2, 264
Virgil, 183
Vorniken, William, 91, 99
Sacramento Altaris, De,

7, 166,
treatise, 156-
219-20, 245-6
Walker,
Salisbury, John of, 260 Sancroft, Abp., and Hilton's claim, 161 Schism, the Great, 7, 17, 27-45
Obadiah, 147, 160 Wenceslaus, King, 33-4 West, Johannes, 156, 157
150,
155,
Scotus, Duns, 67, 224
Scotus Erigena {see Erigena) Seneca, 181 Sergius II. (Pope), 54 Sermon, Gerson's vivat rex, 25 Sheen, Monastery of, 155-9, 165-6 Shirlaw, Walter, the English mystic, 143 Simlerus (bibliophile), 149 Sisters of Common Life, 81, 92
Sixtus (Pope), 191 Subutai, the Tartar general, 3 Suso, Henry, 75, 216, 218-21, 264 Sweden, the New Mysticism in,
Westfalia, John de, printer at Louvain, i486, 124 Wicksteed, Mr P., 194, 196-7 Wiclif, 34, 72, 172 William, Abbot of St Theodoric,
211-12
Windesheim, 91, 93
Wolfius, Reiner, 155
Y?nitatio7ie Christ i,
De, 126, 131

styles
Zabarella, Cardinal,
Gerson
i,
10-13
Syon, Monastery of
{see
Sheen)
Super-excellens Doctor Christianitatis, 45 Zeiner, John, printer of Ulm in 1487, 126-7, 222 Zwolle, the town of, 81, 83, 89, 99
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Thomas A Kempis - His Age and Book 1906

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lit:'-:

AGE AND BOOK

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

National Education and National

AGE AND BOOK

OF ST Peter's college, Cambridge, and of the middle temple BARRISTER-AT-LAW

WITH TWENTY-TWO ILLUSTRATIONS

PUTNAM'S SONS METHUEN & CO.

First Published in igob

De the Treatise English Libraries

List of other Manuscripts cited

List of Printed Editions of the Treatise

Editions of the Imitation

Cordis," by Jean le Charlier de Gerson, Chancellor of Paris

Extract from the a Kempis

i. Cap. i. of the treatise de Imitaiione Christi

Lambeth Palace Library. Codex 536 {circa 1440).

Museum. Harleian MSS. 3216. (21 De1454).

of the treatise de Imitatione Christi

106 et seq. within.)

page of Editio Prin-

Paris edition of 149 1.

130 within.) Cap. i. of the treatise de

Lambeth Palace Library. Codex 475 {circa 1450.)

(See pp. 162-3 within.)

Magdalen College Library, Codex xciii. Oxford.

a Pi^ta with Jerusalem

(November 29th, Hart London edition of

Paris edition of 1496.

(See pp. 132-3 within.)

Paris edition of 1496.

(See pp. 132-3 within.) Lib. I. Cap. i. and ii.

of Cap. iii. of the treatise de Iniitatione Christi

of the Descent from the

Venice edition of 1488 of

127 within.) of Christ and the Sup-

Argentine edition of 1489.

163 within.) of the Crucifixion

Paris edition of 1498.

Europe, England, and America, makes the study of

minds and consciences of men

both monitory and profitable.

tends to become an inlook, and the

The outlook movement from

necessarily involves the dislocation that accompanies

in the older school see this

tendency in religious seems almost irreligious to

seek, with the mystic, the

the soul rather than

the firmament and to find

not in the earthquake or the fiery Yet the whispers of conscience.

nothing surprising in such a tendency. mediaeval mystics deliberately adopted it in

the most notable represenin outline the various

Kempis, and so brought

from the material that he had gathered together

Dean Milman and Thackeray.

have missed the

writers apauthor's point

of view, and to have confounded the Outer with

environment, the structure and

the content of the Imitation.

Many volumes would

Age and Book